


Gravity Rises: The Frozen End [Episode Four]

by BrightnessWings19



Series: Gravity Rises Season One [4]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gravity Rises, Episode four, Gen, Sorophora, slighty different interpretation of Gravity Rises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-08-11 00:11:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 33,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7867267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrightnessWings19/pseuds/BrightnessWings19
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pacifica Pleasure and Gideon Northwest: unlikely allies who need a lesson on working together. Meanwhile, Dipper meets the girl of his dreams, and Mabel learns a bit more about Ford's past.</p>
<p>[Parallel to: Carpet Diem!, The Deep End]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Gravity Rises AU originally created by Sorophora. While I did not create these characters, I have put some of my own details and twists into this series and therefore consider this work (but not the AU) my own.
> 
> Work originally posted on Wattpad.
> 
> When commenting on this work, please do not swear.

The last thing Pacifica wanted was a midnight séance. So, of course, that’s what she got.

Her hair and make-up team was making her presentable, smoothing the loose hairs and covering up wrinkles that had appeared throughout the day. It had been a busy day, which was why Pacifica wanted to sleep instead of summon spirits. Those spirits probably wanted to be sleeping, too.

She closed her eyes as a generous amount of hairspray settled onto her hair. Was she ready yet? She wanted to get this over with.

“My, you’ve really done a number on yourself today,” said her hairdresser with the perfect teeth.

Pacifica didn’t respond. She couldn’t nod, since she was getting prettied, and she didn’t want to tell Perfect Teeth that she’d had a near meltdown earlier that had involved some hair-pulling.

“Am I ready yet?” She asked instead, irritably.

“Nearly,” said her make-up artist with the perfect cowlick in his hair. “Now, don’t talk.”

It was just ceremony; she knew that since Perfect Cowlick was dabbing at her lips that she shouldn’t move them.

A minute later, Pacifica was on her feet and doing one last check in the mirror while her costume director with the perfect eyebrows adjusted her starched skirt.

“Alright, all good,” Perfect Eyebrows said. “Go on ahead, your clients are waiting.”

Pacifica almost muttered something about her being the one waiting to _sleep_ , but making a grumpy face would ruin her foundation. She kept her face placid instead, stepping carefully down the steps of her trailer so as to not trip on her high heels. Not that she wasn’t a pro at walking in heels.

Her feet clicked across the paved walk between her trailer and the Tent of Telepathy. Hopefully it was just some couple who wanted to call on a dead mother. Mothers were easy to find. Lovers or cousins or old friends? Not so much. And so help her, if they asked her to find someone who had committed suicide, she would lose it.

Three clients were sitting cross-legged on the cushions when Pacifica ducked into the séance room. A woman in her twenties sat nervously between two men that looked a little older. All three of them shared the same general appearance, all with a strong-jawed face-shape. Siblings, then. That was a good sign.

Pacifica swept into their line of vision with a silent, mystical air, acting as if she hadn’t noticed them yet. She settled herself cross-legged on her on pillow, keeping her eyes up but staring just past the clients. Her ballooning skirt hid her crossed legs save the tips of her heels sticking out. In her periphery, the clients leaned forward, looking nervous but excited.

She then noticed them. “Oh, heavens!” She said in her Southern accent. “My apologies. The spirits are so strong tonight that I’m afraid I nearly didn’t realize you were here.”

The clients tried to smile in a “don’t worry about it” way, but their faces were confused and a little scared, so the expression didn’t come out quite right. Pacifica was used to this effect.

“Thank you for choosing to let me help you contact those on the other side. I sense you three are related somehow. Siblings, maybe? Are you wanting to contact a deceased family member, such as a parent?”

The clients looked astonished, like there was no way Pacifica could’ve looked at their faces to see the resemblance and used the process of elimination to figure out they were wanting to contact a parent. Of course, she didn’t just do that. Her purple amulet glowed softly on her lapel, feeding her the soft purple light of their thoughts.

“Our father,” the woman said, a second after Pacifica had received that information. “He passed away a few years ago, and when we heard you can contact the dead. . . .”

Pacifica held up a hand. “Oh! The spirits don’t like that word.” She moved her finger to her lips and talked around it. “They don’t like reminders of what has happened to them.”

The clients looked cowed.

“It’s alright, it’s alright, you didn’t know. The spirits understand. Now,” Pacifica said, toning down her accent slowly, “how did your father leave you?”

The woman bit her lip. One of her brothers answered for her. “He. . . He committed suicide.”

_Urgh!_

Pacifica’s face froze in place as she searched the man’s mind for more information. A father, divorced and abandoned, found dead next to his favorite hunting gun. _Really?_ She had gotten so relaxed, thinking this would be easy, but no, they wanted her to call a suicidal. _Honestly!_

“Can. . . Can you find him?” The woman asked, misinterpreting Pacifica’s expression.

Pacifica rearranged her features into something calmer. “Of course,” she assured her clients, “although it will cause some complications. Those who have chosen to take their own life are particularly hard to call back to our realm. I will need quiet and intense concentration from all of you for this to be possible.”

Maybe if they were quiet she could feel a bit more relaxed.

She made a show of looking around the small room and shaking her head. “No, even that wouldn’t be enough.” Her accent had disappeared completely now, her voice low and misty. “We will need more to complete the circle. Seven should do it, I think.”

At those words, three stagehands dressed in black moved aside curtains and silently entered the séance room, settling themselves between Pacifica and her clients. The clients looked nervously at the expressionless helpers.

“Don’t mind them,” Pacifica instructed. “They will help us channel our energy into the spirit realm to find your father. Now, everyone in the circle, take each other’s hands.”

Seven cross-legged people took each other’s hands, forming a circle around a circular table that held a spherical crystal ball in a circular room. The more circles, the better. 

“Now, close your eyes.”

Pacifica’s amulet started glowing a little brighter, but she pushed away the thoughts of the clients, some enthralled and some cynical, and the stagehands, wondering when they were getting paid or if the rumors of Pacifica being unstable were true. She couldn’t look at those thoughts right now. She needed to look at the spirits.

As she looked past the minds of the mortals, she could see the spirits, popping up in little purple wisps and bobbing around the room. Most of them didn’t have form, although some had discernible features, like a vague face or a stream of hair. Usually, spirits hung around their closest relatives. If their father had died naturally, he would be right there next to his children. But because he committed suicide, he might not want anything to do with them.

See? Pacifica wanted to sleep, her stagehands probably wanted to sleep, and this dead guy wanted to sleep. And these clients probably wouldn’t get the loving father who missed them that they wanted. It was a lose-lose for everyone.

“Shh. . .,” Pacifica said out of nowhere, although everyone was silent. “Quiet your thoughts. Think of nothing but your father.”

The stagehands knew this was code for “stare at the wall and keep your mind as blank as possible.” Pacifica claimed it was because it made it more real, but in actuality, the less distracting thoughts the better. Of course, they didn’t know she was _actually_ psychic.

“What was your father’s name?” Pacifica asked.

The clients’ eyes peeked open and glanced at one another. “Thomas,” the woman whispered, like she didn’t want to disturb the silence. “Thomas Pendleton the Third.”

What was it with small towns and fancy names? Never mind. Focus, Pacifica. The sooner she summoned this guy so he could admit he hated his kids, the better.

“Conjure up your father’s face in your mind,” Pacifica instructed. “As detailed and vibrant as you can. The happier the face, the better. Help him remember what he used to be. Think of nothing else.”

Pacifica watched as three faces popped up into the purple smoke, all a little different, but mostly the same. The woman’s image was the strongest. She probably would have the hardest time believing her father didn’t want her.

The spirits started stirring. They, like Pacifica, didn’t like suicidal séances. The souls of the suicidal were restless, some with guilt, some with un-satisfaction, some with anger. They never got the peace they wanted, and they hated being conjured.

Well, that was what Pacifica got payed for.

She started murmuring, still staring at the spirits. “Thomas, Thomas, Thomas, please, come to us, Thomas, let us see you, let us reunite, Thomas, Thomas. . . .”

The spirits stirred even more. A spirit, larger than the others, began to form, swirling in the purple mist. Its shape was very vague; it was resisting being summoned.

Pacifica locked her eyes onto it and tried to mentally direct it to the faces that her clients were still projecting. The spirit swayed as it noticed its own face, floating threefold in the air. It started squirming, wanting out, but Pacifica was too strong. The spirit was drawn, struggling, into her crystal ball, where it filled up the space. She had it trapped. Resigned, the spirit formed into a more human shape, taking on Thomas Pendleton’s strong jaw and heavyset eyes, staring at Pacifica with a “happy now?” expression.

Pacifica let out a dramatic gasp. “He is here!” She exclaimed when her clients looked up in shock.

“H-he is?” The woman asked, hope shining in her eyes. Her brothers didn’t look as happy. Pacifica could bet this was all their sister’s idea.

“He is!” Pacifica said. “He’s in my crystal ball. Oh dear, he isn’t very happy to be here.” She let a little bit of her Southern accent come back.

“He. . . isn’t?”

“Thomas, please, stop struggling!” Pacifica implored the spirit. In her mind, though, she was asking him if he wouldn’t mind putting up as much as a ruckus as he could so that his family could maybe see a glimpse of him?

He refused.

Luckily, Pacifica didn’t rely on the spirits to give signs. The table with the crystal ball started to shudder as the mechanics below it rocked it back and forth. A controlled wind started to flow through the small room.

“Please, your children just want to speak with you! Do not be angry, spirit!”

Thomas lifted an eyebrow. Hmph. Pacifica didn’t need a spirit judging her ability to put on a show.

The table rattled harder, the wind grew stronger and started to whistle, and the woman’s grip on her brothers’ hands had tightened, her face turning pale. “Why doesn’t he want to talk to us?” she asked over the growing noise.

“He’s angry! The reasons that he took his life. . .,” Pacifica leaned forward and put a hand on the crystal ball, but in reality she was watching the thoughts flood into her client’s mind when she mentioned the reason behind the man’s suicide. “Thomas, please, tell us what troubles you!”

Thomas, for his part, mouthed her words mockingly, rolled his eyes, and sent her a strong mental impression that his children didn’t love him when he was alive, so why should they when he was dead?

“My friends, I’m so sorry,” Pacifica said. Her voice carried over the din of noise, which was getting quieter as she began to talk. “He feels that you didn’t love him before he left you, and that you shouldn’t now that he is gone.”

The woman gasped. “I-I did love you, Dad! I didn’t want to leave! Please, I love you!”

Thomas looked away from Pacifica and up at his daughter. His features softened for a moment. Then he turned back to his captor and asked if he could leave now.

Pacifica replied no, not yet, and if she did say so herself he was quite cowardly in taking his own life.

Thomas’s eyes flared with a pale orange flame and he thumped against the crystal ball as hard as he could in a brief expression of outrage. He pushed hard enough that the entire table rocked, in one big motion instead of multiple little ones. The woman let out a little scream at the sudden movement and clung to her brothers.

“Dad. . .,” one of the men started to say. “Dad, I’m sorry. I did love you, I still love you.”

A strong sense of cynicism radiated from Thomas’ spirit, and he requested to leave again, before he was insulted anymore.

Fine. Time to end this thing, and maybe both Pacifica and Thomas could be left alone. “I’m sorry,” she said to her clients, “he doesn’t want to talk. It’s all I can do to keep him here to hear—” She caught off with a jerk, as if she was fighting against the spirit. “I can’t. . . Hold him. . . !”

At her cue, the table started shaking again, and the wind picked up, moving faster and faster around the tiny room. Pacifica waited a few more seconds and then released Thomas, who flew from the crystal ball with his own _bang_ to add to the noise, rushing away from Pacifica and disappearing into a wisp of smoke.

Pacifica sat still, a rather shocked expression frozen on her face. The table stopped shaking, and the wind died down to a hair-ruffling breeze.

“He’s gone,” Pacifica said softly. “I’m sorry.”

The other spirits, sensing the show was over, started to dissipate one by one.

The clients stared at Pacifica. “I. . . I don’t understand,” the woman said. “Why wouldn’t he speak to us?”

Pacifica shook her head sadly—and carefully. Her hairdo had to stay intact, after all. “He has not found the peace he was searching for, I’m afraid. He still has his fears from his former life.”

The woman looked on the verge of tears.

Pacifica let a couple seconds of heavy silence hold out. “Well, my friends, thank you,” she said softly, “for trusting me to try to make contact with your father. I deeply regret how this turned out, but alas, not all séances have positive results. It’s a wonder I was able to conjure his spirit at all.”

Her amulet had stopped glowing so brightly, but she could still see the purple smoke of cynicism dancing around the brothers’ heads. Their sister, however, believed in all of it, and was incredibly sad, the smoke of her thoughts drooping and slow.

“I’m afraid we must part now,”  she continued, her accent creeping back in again. “Please see the cashier for payment. Thank you again for coming to the Tent of Telepathy.” She stood up carefully, resisting the urge to pat herself down. The three stagehands took the cue and let go of each other’s and the clients’ hands, melting back into the shadows and disappearing behind curtains. Pacifica herself waited, standing with her hands clasped over her heart, silent while the clients looked around uncertainly and got up. She nodded a good-bye to them, and they exited, the brothers ushering their sister through the curtains first. An employee would demand their money and then they would go home to discuss what would happen. Or not. It didn’t matter to Pacifica.

What mattered is that she was finally alone.

Not for long, of course. Now she had to make sure she had no more late-night appointments and then let her make-up and hair artists undo all their hard work throughout the day so she could get some much-needed sleep. She was almost tired enough to try to sleep with her immaculate hairdo still piled on top of her head.

Almost.

Pacifica waved a half-hearted good-bye to any spirits still lingering (they liked acknowledgment of their existence) and then turned, letting herself out through her entrance and into the frigid night air.

She trudged back towards her trailer, hoping she could soon fall asleep to her pleasant fantasies of revenge on Mabel Pines.


	2. Chapter 2

Mabel plodded down the stairs, still half asleep, looking at the world through bleary eyes. How late had she been up last night? She’d been studying and taking notes on the Journal, she remembered that. She ran her tongue around her lips and winced when she tasted something lingering but nasty on there. Pen ink. She had forgotten she had burst another pen last night.

“Mabel, you’re taking _forever!_ Just walk down the stairs!” Dipper whined, leaning against the banister impatiently. He was all ready for the day, wearing his favorite t-shirt with the star on it over a yellow sweatshirt and his neon-blue converse with the dark green stripes. One of the many pairs in his collection, of course.

Mabel, on the other hand, had bothered to pull on her pine tree shirt and some jeans, but her hair was a mess and, as the ink taste in her mouth indicated, she hadn’t brushed her teeth. “Does Ford have breakfast?” She asked around a yawn.

“Yeah but if you move any slower I bet it’ll be cold by the time we get there! C’mon!”

“You don’t have to wait for me, Dipper.”

“I’m being nice.”

“No, you’re being annoying. Go on ahead, for goodness’ sake.”

As soon as Mabel gave the word, Dipper was gone, running for the kitchen and the smell of hot pancakes.

It took Mabel a little longer to catch up, as she ambled down the stairs and through the entry way. She entered the kitchen with a loud, unceremonious yawn. Melody looked up from the stove and smiled. “Well, look who’s up.”

“She took forever to get down here,” Dipper said, a loaded fork halfway to his mouth.

Ford sipped from a mug and adjusted his newspaper.

“That’s okay, Dipper, your sister is just a sleepyhead this mornin’,” Melody said cheerfully. “Want a pancake, Mabel?”

“Sure,” Mabel said, stifling another yawn. She grabbed a plate off the table she assumed was for her and glanced at Ford as she passed him. Sometimes she got nervous, knowing she was hiding his own Journal from him and studying it, and he had no idea. There was no way she would let him find out, though, of course.

“So what’s accountin’ for ya bein’ so tired?” Melody asked as she slid a pancake onto Mabel’s plate. Her lilting voice sounded good compared to Dipper’s more whiny one.

“Um, I was up reading,” Mabel replied with another glance at Ford. Well, it wasn’t a lie. Ford didn’t seem to be paying attention, anyway.

Mabel sat down between Ford and Dipper, although she’d moved her seat closer to Dipper without thinking about it. Melody flipped another pancake and used the motion to jab her elbow back into Ford’s arm. “Say mornin’ to your relations, Mr. Pines.”

Ford grunted and turned a page in his newspaper. “Good morning.”

“Morning Ford!” Dipper replied, his mouth full of pancake. Mabel could bet he had already said that at least once already. She muttered back her own greeting while drowning her pancake in syrup.

“Well, half of us are happy this mornin’, right Dip?”

“Right!” Dipper said, spewing chewed-up pancake. A piece landed in Mabel’s syrup puddle and joined its kin in their misery. Mabel wrinkled her nose and fished it out, flicking it onto the table cloth, where it bounced once like a wet fish and then lay still.

Mabel stuffed a sufficiently syrupy bite of pancake into her mouth before she could mutter anything rude like, “I’m going back to bed after this.”

“You know, Mabel, I was going to suggest we have a syrup war, but after smothering your poor food in it, I don’t think you could take any more of the stuff,” Dipper commented.

Mabel glanced at his mountain of whipped cream, swirled and perfect on top of his plate. Just because Dipper took time to make art out of his food didn’t mean it was healthier than hers. She decided a grunt worked in response.

Breakfast continued silently, save for the clattering of forks and knives and Dipper slurping his orange juice. Even Mabel could feel the awkwardness of sitting with three other people and not talking to them, but she didn’t want to say anything.

“I have an idea!” Melody announced. “Family Fun Day! The four of us, all havin’ fun together. How does that sound?”

“Awesome!” Dipper said, punching a fist into the air. Mabel wondered if he knew there was such thing as being _too_ enthusiastic, especially at this time of the morning.

“What do you think, Mr. Pines?”

Ford adjusted his newspaper. “I assume you’re counting yourself as part of the family,” he said without looking up.

“Sure am! I am your cookin’ and cleanin’ lady, after all.” Melody turned and winked at the kids. “Sometimes I feel like his nanny too,” she said in a not-so-subtle whisper.

Ford put his newspaper down on the table. Mabel noticed for the first time that he didn’t have a plate in front of him. “You’re not my nanny, Melody,” he said, a trace of exasperation in his voice. “And we’re all too busy today for ‘Family Fun Time.’”

“Not if you close the Museum for the day,” Melody replied. “C’mon, Mister Ford, the kids could use some bondin’ time with their grunkle. That is what they’re up here for, after all.”

“Since when do you use the word ‘grunkle’?”

“Since it’s a good word.” Melody nudged Dipper and looked furtively at Mabel. “Give him your best puppy dog eyes,” she whispered.

Dipper grinned, and Mabel suppressed a groan. She didn’t _want_ Family Fun Time, she wanted _sleep._

She pushed her pancake around with her fork, trying to ignore the scene around her. Melody was leaning back in her chair with her arms folded and a self-satisfied smirk on her face, Dipper had fixed his puppy dog eyes on his great uncle, which Ford was trying to ignore. He reached for his newspaper to shield himself from the boy’s gaze.

Mabel wasn’t sure why she did it. Not before, not during, not after. But her hand dropped her fork and snatched out at Ford’s newspaper, grabbing it and throwing it to the floor before he could get to it.

Ford looked up at Mabel in shock. “Now what was that for, young lady?” he demanded.

Mabel felt her cheeks heat up as she met her grunkle’s eyes. At first, she thought it was in embarrassment, but the longer she stared at Ford’s accusing gaze, the more she realized it was actually in anger.

“Don’t just ignore us!” She snapped, surprising herself, though not as much as before. “We’re here trying to talk to you like actual people, a-and you’re more interested in—in a stupid newspaper and running your business than spending time with your family, or even _talking_ to us! I-it’s a wonder you’re even at the table with us instead of down in some lab running—fake experiments!”

Silence blanketed the table, muffling the creak of Melody’s chair as she leaned forward.

Ford’s rough features hardened further. “Now, you listen here—”

“She’s right.”

Melody’s soft statement cut through Ford’s voice, and he stopped, turning on his maid. “Excuse me?”

Melody opened her mouth to give a calm reply, but Dipper superseded her. “Yeah! We wanna spend time with you, Grunkle Ford, not dust off old displays and rip off tourists! Can’t you just pay attention to us for a while? Take a day to bond with your relatives?” Luckily, he was more indignant and pleading, rather than angry like his twin.

Ford stood up, his chair scraping as he pushed it back. “My responsibilities as your caretaker don’t involve closing my shop to go goofing off!”

Mabel stood too, although it didn’t give her half the height advantage Ford had. “And if our parents were here, would they agree with you?” she retorted.

Ford was quiet.

Melody let out a little laugh. “She’s got ya there, Mister Pines. C’mon, the kids just wanna spend time with ya. All they’ve gottin to see so far is your grumpy side, and in case ya hadn’ noticed, that’s not the best side a ya.” She punctuated that last remark with a wink to diffuse some of the tension.

Nobody could diffuse tension like Melody. Mabel’s expression softened, and Ford looked defeated. Dipper had his hands braced on the table and was half sitting, half standing in expectation.

Ford took a deep breath and opened his mouth.

“Mr. Pines? Mr. Pines!” Robbie suddenly stuck his head in around the corner. “Hey, Mr. Pines, I let myself in. Morning, kids.”

“Hey Robbie!” Dipper said without taking his eyes off Ford.

“So when were you planning on opening the Museum?” Robbie asked his employer.

Ford looked from Robbie to Melody to Dipper to Mabel. Then he sighed. “The Museum is closed today,” he told Robbie. “And Melody’s my chaperone today. You can head home.”

Robbie grinned. “Sweet! See you all tomorrow, then!” He gave them a smooth wave and left.

Dipper broke the silence first, as expected. “Thanks, Grunkle Ford! We’re going to have _so much_ fun! What do you think we should do? We could go the arcade, or have a Superstore Scavenger Hunt, or build snowmen, or—OOH! Go ice skating!”

Melody snapped her fingers. “That’s the one. The Gravity Rises Lake is completely frozen over this time of year.”

“It’s been years since we’ve been ice skating! Remember, Mabes, how we went when we were little and we kept falling over? We must’ve been so _cute_!”

Mabel wasn’t paying attention to her brother, though. She was giving Ford a small smile. “Thanks, Grunkle Ford,” she said softly. Her face heated up a bit, but now from embarrassment about her outburst.

Then she yawned.

Ford blinked down at her, probably startled from the force of her yawn. It sounded like a distant horn blast proclaiming war. “Maybe, before we go,” he said, “you should get some more sleep.”

Mabel’s shy smile grew a bit bigger. “Yeah, probably.” She admitted.

“Aw, come on, does that mean I hafta wait?” Dipper asked.

Melody nudged his arm. “Don’ worry, Dip, we can keep ourselves occupied while Mabel catches up on some sleepin’.”

“Okay!” Dipper said, his grin returning. It faded just as quickly as he looked from Mabel down to her plate and back up at her. “Um, Mabes?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you going to finish your pancake before you go back to bed, or should I put it out of its misery?”


	3. Chapter 3

“Mr. Northwest, you have a visitor,” said Gideon’s snooty butler in his snooty butler voice.

Gideon didn’t look up from his breakfast at the long and otherwise empty table. “Show them in.” That was strange, he didn’t normally get formal visitors. His sycophants were never allowed at his mansion. 

He waited until he could hear the butler returning with another pair of footsteps, lighter and higher pitched, before turning his attention away from his meal.

He instantly regretted doing so.

“You are dismissed,” he said tightly to his butler, not taking his eyes off his “visitor.” The butler bowed slightly and left the room.

Gideon got to his feet. “Pacifica, what are you doing here?!” He demanded.

She sniffed and folded her arms. “Good morning to you too.”

“You’re not supposed to be here!”

“You said you would help me make plans today!”

“Yeah, I did,” Gideon said, “but not at my _mansion_! Do you know what my parents would—” He stopped and took a moment to compose himself. “As far as the world is concerned, we don’t know each other, alright, Pacifica? I’ll come join you, but not here. Magic stuff doesn’t come home with me.”

“Where, then?” Pacifica asked, her arms still folded.

“There’s somewhere I want to show you,” he replied. “Meet me at. . . Oh, never mind. I’ll just come now. Don’t pull anything like this again, got it?”

“Sure,” Pacifica said, rolling her eyes.

“Go wait outside the gates for me while I go get something. If anyone asks, you were here because I left something at your Tent the other night when I graced you with my presence, and you wanted to return it personally to thank me.”

Pacifica let out an indignant huff. “I am _not_ saying that verbatim,” she said before turning around and stomping off. Gideon wondered how she didn’t trip in those short but tiny heels of hers. Maybe she used her amulet to keep her on balance, or maybe she just had a lot of practice.

Gideon placed his napkin neatly over his place to indicate that he had finished, although he still had some food left. He pushed his chair in and started for the stairs up to his room. Maybe, if he showed Pacifica the Cipher Wheel, she’d leave all this revenge-on-the-Pines thing alone.

Yeah, right. Or she’d just make up some new insane reason to hate them.

Well, it was worth a shot.

Fifteen minutes later, Gideon and Pacifica were headed towards the forest, Gideon’s Journal tucked under his arm.

“So what is that thing, anyway?” Pacifica asked, looking sideways at the tome. “Some kind of amulet instruction book?”

“No,” Gideon replied. “It’s a journal about the supernatural side of Gravity Rises. It has directions to a place the author dubbed ‘Harbinger Hollow.’ That’s where we’re going.”

No need to show Pacifica the six-fingered hand on the cover, or reveal that Stanford Pines was most likely the author. Her hatred might extend to him as much as Mabel, and who knew how she’d react.

“And why are we going there?”

“There’s something there you need to see. Remember how I said I’ve been busy while you’ve been off getting famous?”

They passed through a line of trees, and the sunlight reaching them was decreased dramatically. It felt good on Gideon’s eyes. He opened the Journal, as discreetly as he could without flashing the hand with the 2 on it to Pacifica, and flipped to the first page on Harbinger Hollow. “This way,” he said, his amulet lighting up and shooting a blue beam in the direction they should be heading.

“Oh, that’s handy,” Pacifica said. “Got your own Ariadne’s string there, huh?” Gideon couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic or not, but knowing Pacifica, she probably was.

“It’s not far, but we don’t want to get all turned around,” he replied.

“I thought you knew this forest like the back of your hand,” she said, a sly look on her face. Well, yes, he had claimed that.

“Better safe than sorry,” he said. “Plus it illuminates the path a little better.”

Pacifica didn’t seem to buy this, and she was right not to. Gideon wasn’t a “better safe than sorry” type of guy. But he wanted to show Pacifica the Cipher Wheel and that was all. He usually let himself get distracted on the way to destinations, and sometimes find something new, but with Pacifica by his side, he decided against it. He didn’t want to share any more of his forest with her than he must.

It didn’t take long before Pacifica had formed a small astral projection in order to spare her feet from the deep snow. This gave her quite the advantage in speed, and after a while Gideon was forced to float above the snow himself to keep up. Well, it did shorten this whole escapade, so he didn’t really mind.

Using their amulets, they reached Harbinger Hollow faster than Gideon ever had. He set himself down at the entrance of the cave but kept his amulet glowing brightly; they would need the light. Pacifica followed suit, her astral projection dissipating into twinkling purple stars before vanishing completely.

Gideon snapped the Journal closed and slid it into his black coat. He knew the path to the Cipher Wheel by heart.

Pacifica bathed the cave walls in purple light as they walked, looking around at the primitive symbols painted on or etched into the rock. “What is this place?”

“It’s full of ancient prophecies,” Gideon explained, staying focused on getting to the Cipher Wheel. “But as far as I know, there’s only one that concerns us.”

“There’s a prophecy about us in here?” Pacifica asked, quickening her step. Good, that little poke at her ego helped her get back on track.

“As far as I know, yes.”

They turned a corner, Pacifica on Gideon’s heels. There it was, in the center of the wall, pushing other prophecies to the side.

Gideon approached and bathed it in blue light, revealing a circular drawing with ten unique symbols painted around a triangle in the center of the Wheel.

[insert Cipher Wheel here]

Pacifica stepped forward, her purple light mingling with Gideon’s blue as she stared up at the Wheel. “What is this?” Her voice was hushed, almost reverent.

“The Cipher Wheel,” Gideon replied. “Each symbol represents a person somehow tied to the creature in the middle, known as Bill Cipher.”

Pacifica didn’t seem to be listening, however. Her fingers brushed the section of the Wheel containing the crescent moon surrounding an eye. “That’s my logo,” she said in awe. “Didn’t you say these were ancient prophecies?”

Gideon nodded. “Some very powerful magic was involved in making this. But here’s why I’m showing this to you.” He pointed at the symbol of the wolf. “I’m positive this one represents me, because I know I’m on here, and this one makes the most sense. You can’t read my mind, right? And I can’t read yours. We thought that was because of our amulets, but what if it’s because we’re both on this Wheel?”

Pacifica frowned. “What do you mean?”

Gideon pointed to the top of the Wheel, at the pine tree symbol. “Isn’t that the symbol on Mabel’s shirt she’s always wearing?” His finger moved to the other side, directed at the shooting star symbol. “And I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Dipper wearing a shirt with a star on it, maybe some shoes, too.”

“They’re on the Wheel,” Pacifica said in understanding.

“Exactly. You can’t read their minds because they’re on the Wheel, and that protects them.”

Pacifica was silent for a moment, processing this. Then she scoffed. “Yeah, right. Why would being on a prophecy protect them from me?”

Gideon sighed. “Look.” He pointed to the six-fingered hand next to the wolf symbol. “That’s Stanford Pines, right? The man with six fingers?”

“Oh, that grumpy old man? His Mystery Museum is almost as big a hit as my Tent of Telepathy.”

“Have you ever tried reading his mind?”

Pacifica paused. “No. He’s never come to my show.”

“Well, I have,” Gideon said. “And I can’t penetrate him at all. And that question mark, I’m pretty sure that represents one of his employees. When I tried reading her, I could, but her thoughts were all soupy and the images fuzzy.”

Pacifica seemed lost in thought. Gideon gave her a minute to think.

“Okay, but again, why would a prophecy protect them from us? From each other?” She asked, putting her hands on her hips.

“It’s the triangle,” Gideon said. “Bill Cipher. He’s a dream demon. He deals entirely with the mind. My guess is, his connection with them, with us, is so powerful that it overrules our amulets.”

“A dream demon?” Pacifica repeated. Something lit up behind her eyes.

Uh-oh.

“So you’re saying, we can’t get inside their minds, but this demon can?”

Gideon didn’t want to answer that question, but his silence was enough for Pacifica.

“Do you know how to summon him?”

Gideon wasn’t expecting that. Or maybe he was. He turned sharply to look at Pacifica. “Why would you need to summon him?”

“To exact revenge!” Pacifica said. “I can use him to get inside Mabel’s mind and. . . And get revenge!”

“But there’s nothing to get revenge for!” Gideon objected. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you! Mabel and Dipper and everyone else are impenetrable because they’re on the Wheel, not because Mabel is some mastermind with her own amulet. You don’t need revenge for anything, Pacifica.”

Pacifica’s features hardened, framed by the purple light of her amulet. “Yes, I do,” she said quietly. “I can’t rest until Mabel is defeated and Dipper is by my side. He’s blinded by her influence, the poor thing, and she’s—she’s—”

“Pacifica, you have no real reason to hate Mabel.”

“ _Don’t tell me what is and isn’t real!_ ” Pacifica screamed. Gideon stepped back, surprised by the outburst. He hadn’t known he would tip the scales of Pacifica’s insanity.

“Stay calm, Pacifica,” he said.

“ _Don’t tell me to stay calm!_ You told me you would help me get revenge on the Pines!”

“Not by summoning a demon!”

“You _promised_ and now you’re telling me _it isn’t real?_ How do you know what’s real and what isn’t, Northwest? Huh? I don’t see you using your amulet to see the world how it really is!”

He could probably get out of this by agreeing with her, but he was too annoyed to stoop that low. “You’re delusional, Pacifica! Using that amulet all the time has messed with your mind! There’s no one evil in the shadows after you, especially not some preteen girl who can barely handle anything scary and her dorky twin brother!”

“My amulet gives me true sight! You don’t know what you’re talking about!” Pacifica’s hand clutched her amulet, and Gideon realized his was doing the same. She was backing him up against a wall, the Cipher Wheel a few feet away by now. “I’m going to get revenge with or without you, but if you turn against me, you’ll live to regret it, Northwest!”

Gideon took another step back, his free hand bracing the wall. He had to turn the tide somehow; he didn’t like being backed into a corner at all.

He didn’t notice a prophecy beneath his hand beginning to glow.

“Don’t you dare threaten me, Pleasure,” he warned.

Pacifica let out a small laugh. “I’ll threaten whoever I want! And you wouldn’t be able to stop me.”

Gideon’s eyes narrowed. “What makes you say that?”

“You’ve grown soft,” Pacifica taunted. “You care for the little Pines brats and you don’t want me hurting them, don’t you? You probably wouldn’t even hurt _me_ if you had to.”

That was it. “You have no idea what I’ve been doing while you’ve been gone, Pacifica,” Gideon said, his voice deathly low. “You don’t know me anymore, or what I’m capable of. If you want to leave this cave unscathed, you’re going to show me some respect.”

Pacifica waved her free hand as if she was pushing his words away. “Your threats mean nothing to me, Gideon. I’m—”

She stopped as Gideon took his hand off the wall and snatched her wrist. A bit of the white glow stayed on his hand, dancing around the fingers of his black glove.

“ _Let go of me!_ ” Pacifica screeched. But before she could pull away, both she and Gideon noticed the white glow growing bigger around their hands, centered on where they were touching. They both tried to let go, but found they couldn’t.

The glow grew bigger.

Gideon and Pacifica had time to look up at each other in a panic before the white light enveloped them, consuming everything else in sight.


	4. Chapter 4

Mabel trudged through the snow, her face buried in her scarf as she breathed into it, trying to restore some of the heat to her face. Hopefully she’d get warmer once she got her skates on and started moving, but for now, she was _freezing_.

Ford stood on a dock over the frozen lake, hands on his hips, looking for all the world like an adventurer exploring the terrain. The low morning sun was in front of him, silhouetting him in its pale golden rays. He looked majestic from here, Mabel admitted. She wished she could tell him about his Journal, she really did. But the awe-inspiring explorer that her uncle may have once been was gone now, and no stock photo silhouettes was going to change that.

Right?

“Mabel, Mabel, look! Look how big it is! A whole lake, just frozen over!” Dipper ran past his sister and to the lake shore, puffs of snow flying out behind his heels as he went. With all that hyperactivity, Mabel could bet _he_ wasn’t cold.  

Mabel heard the approaching sound of laughter, and looked over her shoulder to see Melody catching up, pairs of ice skates in her hands and slung over her shoulders. “Your brother really is a happy guy, huh?” she asked as she and Mabel headed towards the lake.

“Yeah,” Mabel said. She wanted to say more, but nothing came to mind, so she awkwardly fell into silence, watching her feet in the snow.

Melody didn’t seem to feel awkward herself, however. “Ya happy to be out here and spend some time with all of us?”

Was Mabel acting sulky? She didn’t think she was. She’d gotten a bit more sleep and she felt fine. “Yeah, I’m happy, I just don’t show it as much as Dipper, is all.”

Melody looked surprised, and Mabel sighed inwardly. She hadn’t been implying that Mabel wasn’t as happy as Dipper at all. Mabel was just jumping to conclusions, per usual.

“So, um, got enough ice skates?” Mabel asked, recognizing her mistake but not wanting to own up to it.

If Melody could tell what was going on in the girl’s head, she didn’t show it. She smiled. “Yup. I’m pretty darn sure these littler ones’ll fit you and Dip, and if they don’, I guess we’ll just hafta make do.”

“They look right to me,” Mabel said. “Can we try them on?”

“Sure thing!”

They had just about reached Dipper. He was hopping on his feet, his scarf fluttering around him as he moved. Melody handed him a pair of skates, and he sat on the dock to put them on, going on about how cool the lake looked and how he wondered if there were some parts that wouldn’t hold him, and wouldn’t the lake water be _freezing_? Mabel tuned her brother out, though, looking back at her uncle. She hoped they could actually have fun with Ford, and that he wouldn’t spend all day being a grump. She also hoped she could have a good time with him without telling him about the Journal, or feeling guilty about not telling him about the Journal, or at the very least acting weird around him.

She sighed as she laced up her skates. Today probably wasn’t going to amount to much, was it.

“Somethin’ wrong, Mabes?”

Oops, she set off Melody’s radar. “No,” she tried, but she probably didn’t sound very convincing.

Melody nodded with a knowing look and sat down next to Mabel, tugging her boots off and putting her ice skates on. “It’s your uncle, huh?”

Mabel looked up, surprised at her accuracy. “How’d you know?”

Melody shrugged. “It isn’t hard to figure out. I can see that adventurous look in your eyes, y’know. You really have a curiosity about the world, dontcha? And Ford is supposedly this scientist that researches the supernatural, so you were excited to meet a kindred spirit, right?”

Mabel blinked. “Y-yeah,” she said. “I mean, nobody ever believed my theories back home, except maybe Dipper, and I thought. . . .” She trailed off.

“You thought you’d be able to connect with him real eas’ly, yeah?” Melody finished.

Mabel nodded.

Melody let a few beats of silence pass as she started to lace up her skates. “Can I tell you a story?”

Mabel glanced up at her. “Sure.”

“Once upon a time, I was a little girl,” Melody started. Mabel realized at that moment that she had no idea how old Melody was. Early thirties, maybe? She seemed so young, but if she was, she was wise beyond your years. “Way back in the eighties.”

Okay, mid-thirties, then.

“I’ve lived in this town all my life, ya know. And I don’t know about Mister Ford, but he’s certainly been here as long as I have. Well, he used to keep to hisself, back before he turned his property into the Mystery Museum, but they was all sortsa rumors about him. We kids would sneak up to his property to see the flashin’ lights at night or hear the strange noises. Some kids thought he was a poacher or zookeeper, some a’ the noises we’d hear. Our parents told us to leave well enough alone, but that ne’er works with kids. Sometimes, if you were real lucky, you could see him leavin’ on a monster hunt.”

“A monster hunt?” Mabel asked, partly to show she was listening, partly because, well, she _was_ listening.

“Yes ma’am. We didn’t know for certain, but we’d all seen lil’ glimpses of the supernatural ‘round the forest. Our parents never believed us, thought we were jus’ bein’ kids, and I s’pose we were, ‘cause the older we got, the more my friends seemed to forget about the supernatural, until one day we were adults, and I seemed to be the only one who knew about the strangeness of the town.” She paused a bit, seeming lost in thought, but then continued. “Anyways, sometimes you could see Mister Ford leavin’ to go on a monster hunt. Once, I was real lucky, and I saw him come back. He had this big sack, and somethin’ was makin’ a big ruckus, fightin’ to get out. I didn’t see what it was, and I didn’t see who the other guys with him were, but I could see Ford, yes ma’am. And you know what he looked like?”

“What?”

Melody pushed Mabel’s shoulder gently. “He looked like you,” she said, “when you get all excited about somethin’. It’s the same look in your eyes as he had.”

Mabel paused to think about that. “So. . . What happened?”

Melody shrugged. “Nobody knows. One day, before the early eighties turned mid-eighties, he stopped comin’ out at all. The townsfolk weren’t concerned because they knew he minded his own business, but we kids knew. The flashing lights stopped, the noises stopped, the monster hunts stopped. At first we just chalked it up to bad luck, not waitin’ and watchin’ at the right time, but one day we all realized he hadn’t done any a’ those things for months. Oh, he’d come out an’ buy groceries, maybe give you a nod if you were lucky. But for years, he wouldn’ do anythin’ exciting. We all lost interest, ‘cause we were growing up and there was nothin’ more to watch. Wasn’ until I came back from college that I saw he’d opened up the Mystery Museum. Few years after that, he hired me.” Melody sighed. “Ever since that night, I never saw that gleam in his eyes. He still does some research, but these days he analyzes soil and naturally occurring phenomena, never goin’ out into the forest to wrangle some nightmare creature and take it home, eyes a’blazin’. He makes attractions for his Museum, first all real, then some fake, then most fake, and he keeps to himself.”

Mabel wasn’t sure what she thought about this story. It sounded sad, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to feel sorry for Grunkle Ford. “So, what do you think happened that day?” she asked.

“I dunno,” Melody said. “Whatever it was, it made him lose his passion, and fast. It musta been awful. I’ve been tryin’ to work up the courage to ask him about it for nearly a decade, but whenever I drop hints about it he clams up, sometimes gets angry with me. So I figured it might not be worth it.”

Mabel wondered if she should ask. Probably not. Even if she could establish a deep conversation with Grunkle Ford, which she doubted, it would probably lead to mention of the Journals, and she didn’t want to think about that today.

“Well, anyway,” Melody said, “I wanted to tell ya that so ya know that deep down, your Grunkle really is like you. But he’s hidin’ it, and probably for good reason, too. Maybe we can find out why someday, but for now, let’s focus on making this a fun day, alright? And maybe Ford’ll thank us for it.”

Mabel smiled, and found it was easier than she’d expected. “Alright.”

Melody looked down at their feet, shod in ice skates and ready to go. “Ever ice skated before?”

 “If spending most of the time on my butt counts, yeah,” Mabel admitted.

“Alright then, I’ll help ya!” Melody got to her feet and reached a hand out, effortlessly standing on the two metal blades between her and the ice. Mabel could bet it was harder than it appeared.

She looked up to take Melody’s outstretched hand, and saw in her periphery an impatient Dipper, standing shakily a ways off on the ice, probably waiting for Melody and his sister to finish talking so they could all skate together. Well, at least he didn’t interrupt.

Mabel took Melody’s hand and tried to stand up. The blades beneath her shot opposite directions as she put her weight on them, and if not for Melody’s strong hand, she would’ve landed on the ice in a tangled heap.

“You’ve got it,” Melody said encouragingly.

Dipper wasn’t so encouraging. He started laughing. “Mabel, you look—!”

But he didn’t get to finish, because at that moment his feet slipped out from underneath him and he fell on his butt onto the ice.

Mabel laughed at the shocked look on her twin’s face, still holding Melody’s hand to steady herself. Maybe this day _could_ be fun.

She straightened her legs, ready to learn how to ice skate.

Ten or twenty minutes later, she wasn’t sure she was doing so well. She couldn’t tell what time it was out here in the middle of nowhere, but she could tell she wasn’t very coordinated. She wasn’t falling as much anymore, but she was still taking it slowly. Melody stayed near her, chatting absently about town gossip and whatnot. Mabel appreciated the company, and she liked listening to the sound of Melody’s voice, even if she wasn’t really paying attention to what she was saying.

Ford had deigned to put on his ice skates and was slowly traversing the lake on his own. Dipper had joined him for a while, skating circles around him and talking—he’d picked this whole skating thing up fast, though Mabel supposed that’s how he did everything—until he realized Ford wasn’t going to go any faster than he was. Now Dipper was skating around on his own, laughing when he fell and getting up again.

Mabel was snapped back to reality by her feet sliding beneath her. She hurriedly regained her balance, holding her arms out and stepping up and down onto the ice like Melody had taught her. “You’re getting the hang of it!” Melody said, a few feet away.

It didn’t feel like she was, but okay.

“ _MELODY!_ ”

Dipper’s shout rang across the lake and bounced off the cliff-face surrounding it, echoing around them. Mabel rolled her eyes, but Melody looked over. Dipper looked kinda panicked from here, but that was probably just because of the distance. “I’d better go see what he wants,” Melody said. “You gonna be okay?”

“Yeah,” Mabel said, smiling to show she meant it. “Go see what he’s gotten himself into now.”

Melody rolled her eyes too, but more good-naturedly than Mabel had, before skating off towards Dipper. Mabel watched her go, suddenly feeling more balanced. Maybe now that she had more space, it was easier to stay on her feet. Not that Melody hadn’t been helpful.

“Mabel?”

Mabel turned around too fast and started to fall. A strong hand grabbed hers, pulling her back up. She looked up to see Ford, helping her to her feet.

“Oh, h-hey, Grunkle Ford,” she stammered, getting back on her feet. “Thanks.”

“Sure,” Ford said. “Since Melody and Dipper are busy. . . .” Mabel glanced over her shoulder to see Melody and Dipper crouched on the ice, looking at something and talking to each other. “Do you want to skate with me?”

Mabel blinked. “O-oh, sure!”

Ford turned around so he was next to Mabel and started off, skating slowly. Mabel followed, finding it easy to keep up with him. She searched for something to say, but couldn’t think of anything.

“S-so, um, find anything exciting lately?”

_Dang it Mabel!_

Ford looked mildly amused at the question. “Not really. I’m currently studying the fascinating occurrence of glowing dirt in certain parts of the forest.”

Mabel didn’t know Ford had a sense of sarcasm. Unless he wasn’t being sarcastic? She couldn’t tell. “Oh. Do you know why it glows?”

Ford shook his head. “Not yet. What’s strange is the placement of the dirt. But. . . I won’t bore you with my silly old projects.”

“N-no, I wanna know!” Mabel said before she could stop herself. They were getting into dangerous territory here!

Ford’s amused expression grew stronger, one eyebrow cocking. “Alright. Would you believe me if I told you there were fairies in this forest?”

Mabel thought back to their first adventure here in Gravity Rises. Oh, she believed in fairies, alright. She could easily remember the sensation of their teeth in her arms. She nodded.

“Just like that?”

Crap! Abort! Abort! “Um. . . Y-yeah! I used to go ghost hunting and stuff all the time back home. I totally believe in all that.”

Ford’s expression was hard to read—all of them were, since he never deviated very far from his standard, neutral-slash-grumpy face—but Mabel thought he was impressed. “Well, in that case, I thought the glowing dirt was residue from fairy activities in the area, since it’s in patches all over the forest, and you can practically find fairies flying around anywhere, but I did some tests and they don’t seem to be correlated.”

“You went out into the forest to look for fairies and glowing dirt?” Mabel asked.

Ford chuckled. “No, I have cameras hidden throughout the forest.”

Mabel nearly fell down again. He _what?!_

“I rarely ever use them, though, since they’re outdated and I usually get all the information I need from samples.”

_Phew!_

“So, if it isn’t fairies, do you know what it is?”

“Not yet. I think I’ll find out soon, though.”

Mabel bit her tongue (softly) to stop herself from asking what she really wanted to: _Why are you researching dirt when there’s so much out there to explore?_

“So, is your winter break good so far? It’s not too cold for you, is it?”

Mabel thought that was an attempt at humor, but it could’ve been a question of concern. Ford’s general emotionlessness got really frustrating sometimes. “No, it’s okay,” she said. “And yeah, it’s good.”

She wanted to say more, to explain why it was good, but she decided that was a bad idea, since she actually couldn’t think of why. It was a true statement, her winter break had been _good_ , but she had no clue what made her think that. After all, the highlights of her trip so far had been getting attacked by fairies, getting attacked harder by a psychotic showgirl, and getting cloned, after which said clones attacked multiple people she knew. And she certainly didn’t _enjoy_ all the attacking, so what made her trip enjoyable?

She knew the answer, but she didn’t want to admit it.

“That’s good,” Ford replied. Mabel could feel a rift growing between them. There had been nothing wrong when they had been talking about paranormal discoveries. Maybe because that excited both of them. But now, they had nothing to say, and it was awkward.

Mabel was accustomed to this feeling. Usually when this happened she faded into the background until she could leave or at least go unnoticed, but in this case there was no crowd and no background to fade into, and even if there was she’d probably fall trying to do that with these skates.

“You go on ghost hunts, huh? What’s the coolest one you ever went on?”

 _Yes! This_ was something Mabel could talk about. Grunkle Ford was about to discover that Dipper wasn’t the only one who could talk his head off.

“Well, there was this one time we were at this haunted high school theatre. Almost all theatres are haunted, you know. I mean, theatres for like, musicals and stuff, not movie theatres. Although some movie theatres are haunted. Anyway, I volunteered to clean up afterwards so I could observe some of the ghosts, but I never expected them to give me such a big sign! I was looking for programs under chairs when suddenly _all the chairs_ started going up and down at once. All of them, in the entire theatre! It was really loud because they were old and wooden and rickety, but. . . .”

And the funny thing was?

Ford actually seemed to be listening.


	5. Chapter 5

Dipper thought he was getting the hang of this whole ice skating thing. He’d only fallen down a couple times, and the one when Mabel laughed at didn’t count. She looked so funny falling down that he just _had_ to laugh, and it messed up his balance. So obviously it was Mabel’s fault.

He skated around the lake, falling down every once in a while but not willing to slow down to prevent that. He had places to be! Well, not really, but what was the fun in taking it slow? Ford was skating by himself like he was lost in thought, and Melody hovering over Mabel to make sure she didn’t hurt herself. It was Dipper against the world, and this cold hard ice.

He fell again.

He couldn’t help but laugh when he got up. This was so awesome.

Hey, what was that?

As he got up, he could see something from this new angle. It looked like something was. . .

_Under the ice!_

Dipper skated over, trying to be fast but not fall down . It didn’t work, and he fell right, spinning across the ice until he was right above the object.

He peered through the ice. It was brown, and it was coming moving. Right for him!

Dipper scrambled back as the shape bumped against the ice hard, making it shake a little bit. Was it trying to break the ice? Was it trying to drown him??

Dipper decided to call for backup.

“ _MELODY!_ ”

It only took a moment for Melody to skate over. “What is it, Dip?” she asked.

“There’s something under the ice!” Dipper said, pointing.

Melody crouched to her feet. “Careful, it’s trying to break it!” Dipper said.

“Break it?” Melody asked. “Maybe it’s trapped!”

Dipper crouched down next to her. The shape was getting farther away, probably so it could rush at the ice again. “What is it?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Melody said. “Maybe if it got closer. . . .”

It started for the ice again.

Dipper instinctively grabbed onto Melody’s shoulder, not wanting to be shaken by the hit. As the shape hit the ice, Melody gasped.

“It’s a seal!”

“A seal?”

“Dipper, we gotta break the ice!”

Dipper nearly protested, but the look on Melody’s face said that was a bad idea. She was pulling one of her skates off, not even bothering to untie the laces. Kneeling on the ice, she started banging the ice skate into the frozen lake, trying to help the seal break it.

“C’mon, Dipper, help me out!”

“We’re not gonna fall in, are we?” Dipper asked.

“No, we’ll be fine, but that seal is going to freeze to death!”

Dipper wasn’t sure the creature under the ice was the seal, but it was definitely alive. He pulled his skate off too and joined Melody in hitting the ice.

The seal hit its nose against the underside again. This time, it cracked.

“Melody, what if we break the whole lake?” Dipper was trying not to show how worried he was, but he did _not_ want to fall into the water under there.

“We won’t, that isn’t how this works. We’ll just help the seal make a hole to break out of.” In her urgency, the easygoing rhythm of her voice lessened.

Melody slammed her ice skate blade-first into the surface, and the cracks grew larger. “Alright, I think that’s enough.” She grabbed Dipper’s arm and pulled him back, getting out of reach of those cracks.

The seal started for the surface again.

Dipper gripped Melody’s arm tightly.

The ice shattered with a deafening _crack_ , sounding like a deadly mixture of glass breaking and a gunshot. Dipper forgot using Melody as his anchor and covered his ringing ears. The seal burst from the water, its shiny fur glistening with water droplets and shards of ice, and landed on the surface on the side of the hole opposite Dipper and Melody.

Melody hurried over to the seal, but she didn’t stand and run. She scooted around the hole with her arms and rear, leaving her ice skate behind. Dipper decided she was a sufficient first responder, and started tugging his own skate back on.

“Dipper, come and see this!”

Dipper stood up carefully, balancing on his skates again, and made his way to Melody and the seal, skirting the hole. Melody was kneeling over the seal. Its glossy fur went up and down as it breathed heavily.

“Isn’t he beautiful?” Melody asked, almost reverently. Her hand on resting gently on the seal’s chest, and it didn’t seem to mind.

“How do you know it’s a he?”

“I don’t.” Melody looked up at Dipper, eyes shining, and smiled. “We saved his life, Dip.”

Dipper smiled back. “Yeah, we did!”

“What’s going on over here?”

Dipper looked up to see Ford and Mabel skating over, looks of alarm on their faces. That _bang_ from earlier probably really startled them.

“There was a seal under the ice,” Melody explained, “and we helped him break through. Do you think he’s going to be okay?”

Ford skated around the hole in the ice, Mabel in his wake, and knelt by the seal across from Melody. “He looks fine, just cold. This is a warm-water seal. How did he get under the ice?”

“I don’t know, we just found him,” said Melody.

The seal started heaving, like it was about to throw up. Ford’s eyes widened, and he moved back, putting his arm out to push Mabel back too. Melody looked confused, but followed suit. The seal kept heaving.

And then it fell still.

Melody gasped and reached for it, but Ford shook his head urgently.

The seal started to move again, but not. . . naturally. It still wasn’t breathing, but its head started moving, like. . . like there was something _inside_.

The seal’s head split apart and unfolded, limp as a fur rug. Dipper could only watch in awed silence, as the seal split open down to the chest, revealing what was inside.

A human girl about Dipper’s age, only her neck and head visible, lay on the fur that had once been a seal, her eyes closed, her breathing shallow.

Ford immediately took action. He moved forward and lifted the girl’s head, kneeling above her. “Can you hear me? Are you okay?” he asked clearly.

The girl’s eyes fluttered open, and she looked up at Ford. 

Ford breathed a small sigh of relief. “You’re safe now,” he told the girl, a gentleness in his voice that Dipper had never heard before.

The girl’s eyes welled up with tears, and she rested her head on Ford’s arm, crying softly. The small crowd around them watched in silence as the girl cried until she fell asleep, her breathing deep but steady. Ford eased his hand out from under her head and left it resting on the seal fur, sitting back on his heels.

Dipper took the scene in, just to make sure he wasn’t missing anything. It looked like a seal was resting on the ice if you looked at its tail, but once you got up to its chest, it split apart, revealing a girl cocooned inside. It looked almost like the girl was in a seal-shaped sleeping bag.

“Okay, I’ll ask the question I know everyone wants to,” Dipper said, his eyes flicking up to Ford and then back to the girl. “What the _heck_ is going on?!”

~~~~~

Gideon opened his eyes. They felt heavy and gunky, and the eyelashes stuck together whenever he blinked. He felt small and weak, and there was a big weight on his head, like someone had asked him to balance an anvil up there.

He tried to look around, but his eyelashes got in his way, framing the corners of his vision like thick black curtains. He was in Harbinger Hollow still, that much he could tell. The Cipher Wheel was on the wall to his right. He could see the symbols in the purple glow of his amulet.

Wait.

Purple?

There was a moan, and Gideon looked over, remembering that Pacifica was with him. And that was certainly Pacifica’s moan, but. . .

 _That was not Pacifica_.

Gideon’s eyes widened as he gazed on _himself_ , propping up on his elbow, opening his eyes slowly. What. . . what was going on?!

In Gideon’s panic, one calm thought reached his mind.

 _I look even more fabulous from this perspective_.

The thought faded quickly, though, as his disconnected body started talking. “Oh. . . Why do I feel so. . . Different?”

Gideon decided he was officially freaked out. That was definitely his body, and that was definitely his face, illuminated by the soft blue light of the amulet, but that was _not his voice_. It was Pacifica’s.

“Gideon, what. . . ?” Pacifica’s voice trailed off as Gideon’s body saw him and started staring.

“Wh-what?” Gideon asked. His voice sounded the same too. “What do I. . . ?”

The end of his sentence was never reached, because he had just looked down at himself.

Pacifica’s purple skirt was on _him_. The full- and half-moons on the front winked up at him. Not only did he have the skirt on, but he had Pacifica’s heels, too. He looked down at his chest to find the purple amulet fastening a black shrug around his neck.

Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no.

His hands groped his head, feeing the weight placed on top of it. It wasn’t an anvil. It was _hair_.

A few feet away, Pacifica was also looking herself up and down. She and Gideon looked up at each other, their eyes in a complete panic.

They then let out a simultaneous, high-pitched shriek.

Pacifica scrambled to her feet, pointing at Gideon. “ _You’re in my body! I’m in your body! EW EW EW GET ME OUT GET ME OUT!!”_

Gideon kicked off Pacifica’s heels before even trying to get to his feet. “This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening, oh my gosh I’m a _girl!_ ”

Gideon and Pacifica stumbled around the cave, bumping into each other, trying to keep their balance in their new bodies. All the while they were screaming, sometimes intelligibly, sometimes unintelligibly. This went on for a few minutes until Gideon fell into a cave wall and found himself at eye level with a white prophecy, glowing faintly.

“Pacifica!”

She stumbled over, her shrieks petering out at she followed Gideon’s gaze. “Wh-what is that?”

“A prophecy. O-or a curse. Or something. We activated it and— _gah!_ How do you manage with this thing on your head?! It _hurts!_ ”

“How are _you_ not light-headed all the time?” Pacifica shot back. She felt at her—or, _Gideon’s—_ head. “Your hair is so short!” she wailed. “How do we reverse this?!”

“I-I don’t know! The prophecy is in another language!”

“Haven’t you ever used your amulet to translate languages?!”

“No!”

“Well, my amulet can, which _you_ have, so _do it!_ ”

There really was no need to be screaming at each other like this, but there was no way they were going to stop.

Gideon activated Pacifica’s amulet, unsure on how it worked. The prophecy was suddenly ringed with purple. _Umm, translate into English,_ Gideon thought.

The letters started to rearrange until they were a white soup, switching around the glowing area and then separating out into words again, but this time in English letters and words.

“Well, what does it say?” demanded Pacifica.

“Is this some kind of sick joke?” was all Gideon said, squinting at the words on the wall through his gunky eyelashes. How did Pacifica even see with all this make-up?

“What does it _say?_ ”

Gideon didn’t want to say it out loud. “Can’t you do the language thingy with my amulet? In fact, switch me. I want mine back.”

“Fine,” Pacifica retorted. Ooh, he _hated_ seeing _her_ facial expressions on _his_ face.

They both took a moment to untie the amulets, Pacifica from Gideon’s cape and Gideon from Pacifica’s shawl. They switched amulets like one might conduct a ransom exchange, holding one amulet out carefully and grabbing the other as soon as it was in their reach.  Gideon ran his too-slender fingers over the smooth surface of his blue amulet, grateful for some sort of familiarity in this whole mess.

Then the amulets stopped glowing, plunging the cave into darkness.

“What happened?” came Pacifica’s voice. At least in the darkness it was easier to imagine her face along with her voice.

Gideon groaned. “This _can’t_ be happening.”

“Why can’t I use my amulet?!”

Man, Pacifica was a _whiner_.

“I guess our amulets only work for us.”

“But I _am_ me!” Pacifica retorted. “Just in your stupid body!”

“Well the amulets don’t know that, do they!”

“You did this on purpose, didn’t you?! To make me suffer!”

“ _No!_ You think I _want_ to be in your body?! I can barely _move_ under all this hair!”

“Well _you’re_ all stocky and sweaty and gross!”

The two continued to yell at each other, finding comfort in the sound of their voices without the accompanying image. Neither wanted to admit just how scared they actually were.

Eventually their voices just petered out, and they sat next to each other in the darkness, trying to forget their situation. It was definitely easier without their sight, but they could still feel the oddities of being in a body that wasn’t their own. Not to mention a body of the opposite gender.

“Gideon?”

“Yeah?”

“What did the prophecy say?”

Gideon sighed. He had to say it, didn’t he?

“It said, _Let anyone who touches these words be placed under any curse that will lead them to improve . That means whatever curse you got, you deserved it. Figure out why you’re cursed the way you are, admit that you were stupid, and then you’ll switch back._ ”

There was silence in the dark cave.

“You’re not messing with me, are you, Northwest?”

“Nope.”

More silence.

“I thought it would be more. . . Ominous. Like, rhymes and Olde Englishe and whatnot.”

“Me too.”

Gideon was leaving out part of the prophecy, however. Except, it wasn’t really a part of it. At least, he was pretty sure it wasn’t. It said _Carla, I’ve always loved you but never had the guts to say it._ Whoever the ancients were that wrote these prophecies all over the wall, they certainly had a sense of humor. Or maybe that was just the English translation from Pacifica’s amulet?

“Can I have your amulet back, if that’s the only one I can use?” Pacifica asked.

“Yeah, I guess.” He held it out in her general direction, and after a few moments a hand gripped it and took it from him. The amulet lit up blue, and Gideon could see his face again, still wearing Pacifica’s expression. He tried to ignore that, using the blue glow to locate Pacifica’s purple amulet and reaching for it.

The two got to their feet, dusting themselves off. Gideon _hated_ this skirt.

“Let’s get out of here, at least,” Pacifica said.

“Yeah.”

But neither of them made a move to leave.

Finally, Pacifica sighed and started back the way they came. “Come on, Gidica.”

Gideon started after her, and then froze as her words hit him. “ _What_ did you call me?”

Pacifica had a devious smile on her face. On _his_ face. “Gidica. Gideon in Pacifica’s body. That’s your new and _beautiful_ name.”

On one hand, it was a good sign that she was acting like herself again. On the other hand, just _no_.

“ _Don’t_ call me that.”

“Why not?” Pacifica asked smugly.

“Get that look off _my_ face, Pa. . . _Pazeon_.”

Pacifica let out an offended gasp that was neither manly nor ladylike.

“Yeah, you don’t like that, do ya?” Gideon taunted, putting his hands on his hips. He then realized how Pacifica-like that gesture was and dropped his hands immediately.

“Ugh, whatever. Let’s just get out of here and figure out how to change back. Obviously the curse is all your fault, since _I’m_ perfect. You’d better fess up to what you did.”

“Oh, whatever, _Pazeon_. You were the one who went all crazy.”

Pazeon let out a _hmph!_ and turned to go. Gideon went to follow—he _refused_ to be called Gidica—but was cut off by a shriek from his companion.

“ _Gidica! You left my SHOES!”_


	6. Chapter 6

“She’s a selkie.”

Mabel looked up sharply from the strange girl to Grunkle Ford.

“A what-now?” Dipper asked, assuming his annoying-but-cute confused look.

“A selkie. Women who can magically transform into seals by wrapping themselves in a seal skin. Well, the legends are all about women, but there are male selkies as well. They’re just the minority.”

“So wait,” Dipper said, “this girl is basically a shape-shifter?”

Ford paused, and then nodded. “That’s one way to put it.” Then he was all urgency. “We have to get her back to the Museum, or she could freeze. She would be warmer if she had stayed a seal, but as it is, we have to move quickly. Melody, help me carry her to the car.”

“O-of course, Mister Pines,” Melody said. She and Ford got to their feet and crouched carefully on their ice skates, pushing their arms under the selkie and lifting her by slowly straightening their legs. When they were erect, the selkie resting on their arms like they were a hammock, they started moving for the edge of the lake.

“Mabel, Dipper, make sure she doesn’t slide off. Melody, take long strides in sync with me and we should be alright.”

It took Mabel a second to get moving. Was this it? Was she seeing Ford in adventure mode? He didn’t seem to have a spark in his eye, just a grim determination. But he certainly seemed to know what he was doing.

Dipper took the front, since he was better at skating, and made sure the selkie didn’t slip off tail-first. Mabel followed behind, although there didn’t seem to be much risk of her sliding off head-first, since she was tilted slightly forward.

The awkward procession made their way across the lake slowly, carefully, and safely. Even Dipper didn’t complain about the pace. Mabel could bet he was focused on how cute the girl was, even though she was unconscious and wrapped in a seal. She wasn’t sure what Dipper found cute, but she thought this girl qualified. She looked like she could easily be either the mean popular girl or the nice, sweet popular girl, with long dark brown hair framing a pale face. Maybe she was just pale from the cold, though.

Mabel wondered what it would’ve been like, trapped in seal form underneath a thick layer of ice in a freezing lake. Then she immediately decided she didn’t want to imagine that.

Finally, they made it to the lake shore. Melody and Ford set the selkie down on the dock and quickly switching their skates off for their snow boots before picking her up again and setting off for the car. Mabel and Dipper took a little longer to make the switch, Mabel into her boots and Dipper into his brightly colored tennis shoes.

“Do you think she’s going to be okay, Mabel?”

Mabel wasn’t used to that level of concern in Dipper’s voice, but he seemed to be using it more and more since they got to Gravity Rises. “Yeah, I think so. Ford knows what he’s doing.”

“Does he? Doesn’t he just do boring research stuff in his lab?”

“He used to be a monster hunter,” Mabel said. “Melody told me. Plus, he couldn’t have gotten all the information in the Journal without getting out and about, right? And that’s probably the third one he wrote.”

“Does it say anywhere in the Journal why he stopped writing it?”

Mabel paused. Of course! Maybe the Journal had clues as to why Ford stopped monster hunting! “I don’t know, maybe! Thanks for the idea, Dip!”

Dipper looked confused at her level of excitement, but he shook it off. “You’re welcome. C’mon, let’s go.” And he took off after Ford and Melody, reaching the car just before they did and opening the door for them. He left his ice skates, so Mabel tied the laces together and swung them over her shoulder, her own pair in her hands.

When she made it to the car, the selkie was propped up in one of the window seats, leaning against the window. Dipper was sitting in the middle, making sure she didn’t fall over. Mabel slid in next to her brother, closing the door, not knowing what to say with their new passenger unconscious two seats over. So she didn’t say anything.

Ford turned on the heat, but kept it low. It took Mabel a moment to realize that it was to warm the selkie up slowly, rather than blast her with heat and risk. . . Doing whatever going from extreme cold to extreme heat did to people. Mabel decided she should look that up next time she got the chance.

She looked out the window on the drive back, watching the lake disappear as Melody drove them away. They’d only been there for an hour or so, and she had just started an actual conversation with Ford. She found herself wishing that the selkie hadn’t turned up and ruined it.

_Woah there, Mabel. We’re saving this girl’s life! Plus, you’re seeing Ford in the zone, something that probably hasn’t happened for decades!_

That thought made her feel better.

The car ride was spent in silence until they pulled into the driveway at the Mystery Museum. Melody turned off the car and the heat with it, making Mabel realize that it had slowly been getting warmer and warmer over the course of the drive. “Well, that was an unexpected way to end our Family Fun Day,” Melody commented.

“The day isn’t over yet!” Dipper pointed out.

Melody looked like she was about to reply, but Ford was getting out of the passenger seat and heading around the car to get the selkie, so she joined him. Dipper held onto one of the seal fins as the adults opened the door, and then pushed gently as they eased the selkie into their arms. Once she was out, he followed.

Mabel didn’t feel like scooting across the selkie’s now-wet seat, so she got out on her own side, going around to close the other door too, since of course Dipper forgot to do so. When she caught up to the others, Melody and Ford were side-stepping through the door, Dipper standing by. “Onto the couch,” Ford was instructing, grunting every few words. Mabel guessed the seal part of the selkie was heavy. “We’ll let her sleep for a while, however long she needs, and once she wakes up, we’ll ask her about how she got here.”

“What do you mean, how she got here?” Mabel asked, following him inside. Dipper closed to door behind them all.

Melody and Ford lowered the selkie onto the couch. Her eyes fluttered, and she rolled onto her side.

“I’ve seen some selkies in Gravity Rises before,” Ford said to Mabel, “but never a warm-water seal in the dead of winter. Something happened to her that made her end up here. Who knows what. But, we’ll find out soon enough. Go get some of your clothes, Mabel, that you think might fit her.”

“Wait, what?” Mabel asked.

“She’s going to need them,” is all Ford said.

Ah.

Mabel took the stairs two at a time, wanting to get back down there as soon as possible in case the selkie woke up. She could hear Dipper thumping up behind her, although why he would leave the selkie’s side, she wasn’t sure. She was rummaging through her clothes when he ran in and started doing the same.

“What are you doing?” Mabel asked.

“You never do your laundry,” Dipper replied, “and I bet that girl would rather wear boy’s clothes than your dirty ones!”

“Not fair!” Mabel pouted. But, Dipper was right. Mabel couldn’t remember the last time she’d washed any of the clothes she was looking through. She grabbed the cleanest looking shirt she could find and a pair of pajama pants, grabbing some underwear and rolling it into the shirt, just in case. Their arms around bundles of clothes, the twins set off back down the stairs to the living room.

Ford gave them a once-over and nodded approvingly. “Alright. Now we wait.”

So Mabel and Dipper deposited their bundles next to the couch, sat on the floor across from it, and started to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And wait. . .

Thirty minutes later, Ford had a fire going in the fireplace, and he, Mabel, Dipper, and Melody were all playing cards cross-legged on the floor. Dipper’s new pig, Waddles, had joined in the fun and was eating the occasional card Dipper fed to him. Mabel, for her part, had opted to sit across from Dipper. Considering that Waddles used to be a slightly-evil Mabel clone, the original Mabel had no intention of going near the pig.

“Ha-HA!” Dipper said, throwing a trump card onto the stack.

“Aw, come on!” Mabel said. “Do you even know what we’re playing?”

“The higher the card, the more I win!” Dipper replied.

Ford chuckled. “That is true.”

Mabel sighed and said, “Pass.” Dipper had been winning almost every round.

There was a moan from the couch.

Everybody turned their attention to the sleeping selkie. Dipper dropped his cards, Waddles taking the opportunity to have a snack, but nobody was watching the pig. The selkie tossed a bit in her seal skin, which bulged unnaturally. Mabel found it easier to think of the skin as a sleeping bag than a used-to-be-live seal.

“Is she waking up?” Melody asked softly. Ford stood up without answering.

The selkie’s eyes opened slowly. She blinked a few times, her eyelashes sweeping across her eyes. Her head lifted, and she brought an arm out of the seal skin, propping herself up on her elbow. After a staring contest between her and the four humans in the room, she asked quietly, “Where am I?”

Dipper jumped to his feet, but Ford beat him to the punch. “You’re at our home,” he told the selkie. “We brought you here so you wouldn’t freeze to death out on the lake.”

The selkie looked up at him, processing this. “Th-thank you,” she finally said.

Ford smiled at her, a gentle and caring smile which Mabel wasn’t sure she had seen on his face before. “You’re welcome. My name is Stanford Pines, and I’ve studied the supernatural for a long time. You don’t have to worry about any of us hurting you because of what you are. Right, everyone?”

They all nodded.

Tension in the selkie’s body that Mabel hadn’t before noticed left. “Thank you,” she said again, this time in a whisper.

“Would you like to finish transforming?” Ford asked. “We have some clothes for you.”

The selkie looked down at the pile of clothes. “Y-yes, thanks.” She carefully reached her free arm out of her seal skin, but couldn’t quite reach the clothes. Dipper rushed over and handed the bundle to her, his face flushed. The selkie smiled at him, making his face redder, before disappearing into her seal skin, taking the bundle of clothes with her. The seal’s head didn’t close over her, so Mabel figured she was just inside the skin, rather than turning into a seal.

Dipper plopped on the ground next to Mabel, his face still red. Mabel couldn’t resist nudging him and whispering, “She’s cute, isn’t she?” Dipper shushed her violently in response.

“Alright, kids,” Melody said, getting up. “Let’s go into the other room. We’ll come back once she’s ready.”

Mabel and Dipper obeyed without complaining, following Melody into the kitchen. Ford tagged along, leaning in the doorway silently.

Melody busied herself with getting some food out, making Mabel realize it was lunch time, and that she was hungry. Dipper sat at the table, staring at the wall like it would make the blood drain from his face faster. He usually didn’t show this level of embarrassment towards his crushes, but Mabel supposed loaning the selkie some of his clothes had made this particular crush a bit more awkward.

“Ford, what do selkies eat?” Melody asked.

“Hmm? Oh, when they’re in human form, the same as the rest of us.”

Melody paused. “Sandwiches, then,” she said to no one in particular. She started getting out condiments and lunch meats. The sound of plastic placed on the counter was the only one amongst the silence for a few minutes.

“Mr. Pines?”

They all turned around. The selkie stood in the doorway, looking, for all intents and purposes, human. She wore the jeans Mabel had lent, which looked better on her than they did Mabel, and one of Dipper’s t-shirts that was cream and bore the word “AWESOME” in stylized red letters.

The red glow in Mabel’s periphery that was Dipper’s face grew stronger.

“Come on in,” Ford said, moving away from the kitchen entrance. “We’re just getting some food ready, if you’re hungry. Are you feeling better?”

For the first time, the selkie smiled. The smile radiated so much, Mabel wondered if it was going to blind her. “Yes, I am. Hungry and feeling better, that is. I haven’t been human in a while; it feels really nice.” Then she stopped and blushed a bit. “Sorry.”

“About what?” Ford asked. “You can speak freely in here, don’t worry. What’s your name?”

“Amanda,” she replied, smiling again.

“I’m Dipper!” Dipper blurted. He looked embarrassed, but that didn’t stop him. “I’m not magical but I do have a cool birthmark, wanna see?”

“Sure,” Amanda said, pulling up a chair next to him. Her hair was really shiny, but Mabel wasn’t sure if that was natural or if it was wet.

Dipper pushed his hair up to reveal his birthmark. His face was getting back to normal; he was in the zone now.

“Oh, that’s cool!” Amanda said. “It’s the Big Dipper!” She frowned, but it wasn’t a negative expression, just a confused one. “Is Dipper actually your name?”

“Nope, a nickname,” Dipper replied. “But it’s what everybody calls me.”

Ford coughed into his fist to get their attention. “Amanda, do you know how you ended up here in Gravity Rises?”

Amanda’s expression froze on her face before sliding off like melting water. “Gravity Rises,” she repeated.

“Yes, that’s this town.”

“What. . . What state is it in?” Amanda asked, looking scared to hear the answer.

“Oregon, USA,” Ford replied. He seemed to understand what was going on here, which was annoying, because Mabel did not.

Amanda just stared at Ford for a moment. Then, she propped her elbows up on her knees and put her head in her hands. Small, silver streaks became visible in her dark hair as she leaned forward.

“Are you okay?” Dipper asked, a bit too fast.

Amanda didn’t respond. Dipper reached for her, probably to give her a comforting pat or something, but Mabel shook her head. If Amanda was anything like her, she wouldn’t want to be touched right now.

“Do you know how you got here?” Ford asked again.

Amanda took a deep breath before looking back up at them all. “Not really,” she said. There were no tears on her face, no tremble in her voice, but she sounded sad and scared all the same. “I was out for a swim. . . .”

“Where?”

“Off the coast of California, near the Baja Peninsula,” Amanda said. “I was just swimming, you know, for fun, when the water kept getting colder and colder. . . It was getting so cold that I needed to surface and get out, but. . . When I swam for the surface. . . It was covered in ice.”

“You were trapped in there,” Mabel said softly. She knew what it was like to be trapped.

Amanda nodded, though she wasn’t looking at Mabel. “If you hadn’t saved me. . . .”

She didn’t seem to know how to finish the sentence, but Dipper interrupted her before she could, anyway. “I found you!” he declared out of nowhere. “I saw you trying to break the ice,” he continued, his voice mellowing as he went on, hopefully realizing his outburst was out of line. “Then Melody had the idea to hit the ice with our skates to help you out. We thought you were just a seal, though.”

Dipper Pines: Master of Tactlessness since 1999.

Luckily, Amanda didn’t seem  as offended as Mabel would’ve been. She flashed her radiating smile at Dipper. “You saved me, then.”

“I helped!” Dipper agreed, grinning back.

Mabel didn’t understand how Dipper’s aggressive flirting style didn’t turn away every girl he met. If the only girls he had charmed had been a group of fairies, a maniac wearing make-up, and now a magical seal girl, she might’ve found it easier to reconcile, but Dipper had been getting the girls before they came up to Gravity Rises, too. He was a master at acting clueless 80 percent of the time when he was only _actually_ clueless 50 percent.

“Do you want somethin’ to eat, Amanda?” Melody asked from behind them. “I can make a sandwich for you.”

Amanda looked over her shoulder, looking a little startled by Melody. “Oh, sure,” she said. “Thanks. Could I just have PB&J?”

“Sure thing.”

Amanda turned back to Ford. “My mom always warned me about portals and things leading to other supernatural places,” she said. “Do you think that’s what happened?”

Ford nodded. “Almost certainly. There are many pockets of magic around the world, places where other dimensions leak through, or magical beings colonize. But Gravity Rises is the biggest concentration of supernatural phenomena in the world, by far. It pulls at the other pockets, trying to suck them in, which sometimes creates portals. I’ve come up against many lost creatures who got here the same way you did.”

“And. . . Have you helped them get home?”

Ford approached the table and pulled out a chair, sitting down so he was at eye level with Amanda. “Don’t worry,” he said, “we’ll get you home. I promise. It might take a while, but it will happen.”

“Why would it take a while?” Dipper asked. “Can’t you just send her down to California on a plane? Not. . . That I want you to leave right away or anything,” he said to Amanda.

“Send her on a plane with a seal skin?” Ford pointed out. “If all else fails, we’ll drive you home, Amanda, but it might be simpler to try to reverse the portal’s pull and send you back through there. Until then, you don’t mind staying with us, do you?”

Amanda shook her head. “Thanks for being willing to have me,” she said. She paused for a moment and then asked, “Do you have a phone I can use to call my mom?”

“Seals can use cell phones?” Dipper asked, looking fascinated.

Mabel nearly face-palmed right then and there, but Amanda just smiled. “My mom is a selkie too,” she told Dipper. “We have normal human lives on the shore as well as our seal ones.”

Dipper _ooh_ ed. “Like secret identities!”

 “I guess so.”

Ford stood up, his bones creaking. “I’m an old fashioned man, Amanda, so my phone is connected to the wall. Do you want me to show you where it is, and then you can come back in here and have some food?”

“Sure, thanks.”

The two left. Mabel watched them go, a sudden, burning desire to hear Amanda’s phone call washing over her. The girl seemed so calm and collected, nothing like Mabel had felt all winter so far. Was it just a front? Or was she just a lot braver than Mabel?

Only one way to find out.

“I-I’m gonna go use the bathroom,” she said to no one in particular, getting up and leaving the room. She hoped Dipper didn’t see through her. But she made it all the way to the bathroom without hearing him following her, so she waited behind the bathroom door and watched through the crack until she saw Ford pass. Once she was certain he was gone, she left the bathroom and tip-toed towards the wall phone, which was just around a corner. Mabel situated herself on the other side of the corner and began to listen.

“ _Leave a message and I’ll get back to you! Thanks!_ ” said a cheerful voice from the phone, which Mabel could just make out. The phone then _beep_ ed and Amanda started talking.

“Hey Mom. It’s Amanda. I guess you’re probably out looking for me and don’t have your phone. I want you to know, I-I’m safe.”

The thrill of sneaking around started to puddle in Mabel’s shoes as she listened to Amanda’s voice tremble.

“I went for a swim and I guess I swam through one of those portals you told me about. I ended up in Oregon, in this frozen lake.” She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice was full of tears. “I thought. . . I thought I was going to die.”

Mabel put a hand to her mouth.

“B-but I’m okay,” Amanda continued, pushing back the tears with a breath. “I was rescued by this family. They. . . saw what I am, but Mr. Pines—he helped rescue me; he’s old but really nice—said he knows all about supernatural stuff so it’s okay. He told me this town I’m in, Gravity Rises, is like the center of magic on the planet or something.”

Now that she had gotten to this part of the story, her voice strengthened again. Mabel, however, was stuck on “ _old but really nice._ ” Since when was “nice” ever a word to describe Ford? Unless one was referring to an older use of the word that meant nit-picky or careful, but Mabel doubted many other people knew about that.

“Anyway, Mr. Pines said he could reverse the portal and send me back home, s-so everything is going to be okay. Please call this number back so I can talk to you, though.” Her voice took on a bit of a laugh. “And I can tell you about the cute boy who rescued me.”

The joke was weak, though, and Mabel could hear the tears again laced through the laughter.

“I. . . I love you, Mom. I’ll see you again soon. I will. I-I have to.”

Something, some feeling, was pushing fiercely at Mabel’s chest from within.

“Call me back, okay?” Amanda’s voice had grown soft. “I love you.”

There was a soft _click_ as she hung up the phone.

Mabel stood there against the wall, feeling more guilty than she had in a long time. What had she hoped to feel when she learned Amanda really was scared? Triumph that she had caught her? Relief that she was a person too? All she _really_ felt was paralyzing guilt mixed with the itchy face feeling that preceded crying. Amanda was so horribly scared and sad, and Mabel had heard it when she wasn’t supposed to. Mabel was supposed to see the mask, the brave face, but she peeked under it anyway. She felt like she had just invaded Amanda’s privacy in the worst way possible.

_But I’m not a coward if she’s scared too._

The thought was quickly squelched by more guilt, and an overwhelming realization that Amanda was about to walk this way and Mabel had to _get out of there._ She darted for the bathroom and just made it behind the door, listening to Amanda’s footsteps pass her by in the darkness.

“Did she call me cute?” Dipper asked.

Mabel jumped and knocked into something, letting out a startled yell.

“ _Ow!_ Mabes!”

Mabel turned on the bathroom light to see Dipper rubbing his elbow and squinting into the light. “ _Dipper!_ What are you doing here?”

Dipper gave her a withering look. “Well, it took me a minute, but I realized your ‘going to the bathroom’ was strangely right when Amanda was going to go call her mom. Really, Mabel? Eavesdropping?”

Mabel winced. “Can we just say I feel really bad about it and you don’t need to remind me?” When Dipper didn’t reply, she continued, “What did you hear?”

“Nothing really, because it was _private_ ” — _oh geez, thanks, I had no idea_ — “but I could make out ‘cute boy.’ Was she talking about me?”

“Considering the only guys she’s seen are you and Ford, and it would be _really_ creepy if she meant Ford, I think we can assume she meant you.” Mabel rolled her eyes as she said it, but it felt good to distract herself from her guilt by talking about something so trivial.

Dipper took a moment to absorb this information. Mabel hoped he would go off on how great it was that Amanda thought he was cute, but instead he said, “Why’d you do it, Mabes?”

Mabel looked at the floor. “I-I dunno. She just seemed so. . . collected. And I thought, I don’t act that way when I’m scared. I didn’t think it could be real. A-and it wasn’t, but. . . .”

Dipper didn’t respond right away, which, considering him, was probably the worst way he could’ve responded. “Mabel, you aren’t. . . Comparing yourself to Amanda, are you?”

He took the time to craft a sentence before saying it. He must have really wanted to be careful in this conversation, which didn’t make Mabel feel any better.

“Wh-what do you mean?”

“I mean. . . You both have been in scary situations before. Amanda swimming through that portal, all those clones trapping you in that cave. You’re not telling yourself Amanda is better than you just because she isn’t freaking out, are you?”

Mabel decided not to mention the experience that Dipper didn’t mention. She still didn’t feel comfortable thinking of Pacifica’s name. But, this entire conversation was uncomfortable anyway. “She’s not better than me,” Mabel said. “She just is. . . braver.”

“I don’t know, Mabel,” Dipper said softly. “Is it braver to hide what you’re feeling or show it?”

Mabel blinked, thinking about that. Amanda _was_ hiding her fear. Mabel never had that she could remember. Whatever she felt was there for all to see, unless hidden by shyness. But the people who care can see through that.

Dipper had a point, but she wasn’t ready to admit that. “I’m not brave, Dipper,” she said. And to end the conversation, she continued, “Let’s get back to the kitchen or everyone will figure out what we’ve done.”

“Hey, no _we’ve_. You were the one who decided to eavesdrop.”

Whelp, there went Dipper’s empathy, defenestrated in one sentence.

“Yeah, thanks, Dip. C’mon.”

They left the bathroom, turning the light off behind them, and stepped lightly through the carpet back to the kitchen. Mabel watched Dipper’s footprints in the shag ahead of her, her brain fuzzy.

 Whatever she had felt before she decided to eavesdrop, she certainly felt much, much worse now.


	7. Chapter 7

Pacifica Pleasure hated a lot of things. She hated Mabel Pines. She hated low-lives that couldn’t even recognize talent. She hated people who treated her like a child. She hated people who didn’t compliment her when they should, which was every time they saw her. She hated people who called her a fake. She hated that she technically was a fake.

But now. Now, there was something else. A new, crowning hatred that topped everything else.

Pacifica. Hated. Being. A. _Boy._

Gideon—or, heh, _Gidica—_ scowled at her and thrust the heels at her. “If you love them so much, you wear them.”

Pacifica looked herself, or rather Gideon’s body, up and down. “You think I can wear heels in this thing? You don’t have a delicate bone in your body, Gidica!”

His scowl deepened. He was ruining her make-up with that expression! “Don’t call me that,” he said, his voice low.

Unfortunately for him, the threat didn’t work when it was a male voice coming from a female body.

Pacifica laughed. “I’ll call you whatever I want.”

“Fine, _Pazeon_ , but we’re wasting time.”

Pacifica wrinkled her nose—a face that didn’t feel half as satisfying with Gideon’s pudgy features. “Fine. Let’s just figure out what you have to do to fix this. I have a show in a few hours and there’s no way I’m performing in this body. Or letting you perform for me.”

“Pacifica, this is not my fault!”

“You touched the prophecy!”

The two continued down the passages of Harbinger Hollow, bickering all the way.

“Look,” Gidica said, “the prophecy said _‘whatever curse you got, you deserved it.’_ That means both of us. So we both have to confess to something.”

“Fine. You first.”

Gidica threw up his hands. Gah, he was so jerky and violent. Her body wasn’t supposed to move like that! “I don’t know! I do a lot of stuff, I don’t know what counts as bad. And most of it isn’t because I want to, anyway.”

“That’s it!” Pacifica said. “You can’t think of what you’ve done wrong, right? Well, me neither. Because I don’t do anything wrong.” Gidica rolled his eyes, but Pacifica ignored him. “So maybe we switched bodies so that I can figure out what you’ve done with fresh eyes.”

“And so that I can do the same for you, I’m sure?” Gidica drawled, voice heavy with sarcasm.

Pacifica waved the comment away. Then she moaned and stopped walking.

“What?”

“That would mean we _do_ have to take each other’s places before we switch back. At home.”

Gidica stopped too. “No. No way am I running your fake psychic show.”

“HEY! I am a _real psychic,_ as you know very well!”

“Yeah, but your show is fake.”

“ _Hmph!_ That’s just so people aren’t afraid of me and my awesome power.”

“Sure.”

The two continued walking in a broiling silence, tension rolling around them in waves. Pacifica would _not_ let Gidica ruin her show. They would have to figure something out before that. Couldn’t be too hard, right?

They turned a corner and were greeted with sunlight, filtering through the snow-capped trees with a cheerfulness neither of them felt. Gidica hurried his pace, but then stopped as he tripped over his tiny feet. Pacifica snickered at him, but then tripped too.

  Finally, they were under the sun again, and they let out breaths they didn’t know they had been holding. It felt a lot better being out in the open then trapped in the suffocating cave whose low ceiling bounced their emotions around like ping-pong balls.

Gidica snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it.”

 “What?”

“We were fighting about Mabel when I touched the prophecy. I was trying to tell you she’s not an evil mastermind—”

“—and I was trying to tell you you’re too soft around her.”

“Well, you’re wrong!” they said at the same time.

After a brief scowling contest—Pacifica could now make whatever faces she wanted without worrying about ruining her make-up, though Gidica was doing a number on his—Gidica continued.

“So maybe we’ve switched bodies so that you can apologize to Mabel.”

“What does switching bodies have to do with her? And I’m _never_ apologizing! I have nothing to apologize for!”

“You nearly murdered her with a kitchen knife.”

“I wasn’t going to _kill_ her! Just teach her a lesson!”

Gidica opened his mouth and then shut it again. “Whatever. Look, you have to apologize to Mabel for this to all be over—”

“You don’t know that!”

“— _but_ you can do it in _my_ body, so she doesn’t really know it’s you. _Or_. . . Or, I’m supposed to apologize for you, using your body.”

Pacifica thought it over. “Alright. You do that. And what am I supposed to do with yours?”

“I dunno, right one of my wrongs.”

“And what wrongs do you have, Gidica?” Pacifica asked, suddenly very interested. What _had_ Gideon been doing all the years she’d been gone?

Gidica reddened. Oh! Pacifica _never_ let her face turn red! It looked hideous! “Never mind. Just. . . Fill in for me at home and try not to let anyone know it’s you. You’d better practice talking deeper.”

“No way,” Pacifica retorted. “How do we even know our voices sound like this to other people? I mean, what’s the point of you apologizing for me if Mabel can hear your voice?”

“Are you saying we probably sound normal to everyone else? How would we know?”

Pacifica shrugged. “By going into town and asking people.”

Gidica frowned. “’Oh, hello, sir, I was just wondering, does my voice sound strange to you? Like a boy instead of a girl?’”

“Yeah, just like that,” Pacifica said sarcastically. “A little more subtlety, if you even know what that means.”

“Of course I know what subtlety means!”

Pacifica fingered a swath of her cape. “Oh, sure you do.”

“Pazeon! Ugh! Let’s just go try your idea.”

With that, Gidica turned and marched off through the snow.

On one hand, Pacifica couldn’t believe Gidica was trudging through deep snow with nothing but black nylons on, totally ruining them, but on the other, she couldn’t help but feel smug as she followed him.

Pacifica: 1, Gidica: 0.

~~~~~

“Okay, go ahead.”

Gideon looked at Pazeon incredulously. “No way!”

The two were in an alley, looking out into the town square. Townsfolk milled around, chatting to each other while going about their business on the sunny winter day. All of them most likely knew Pacifica from her shows and Gideon from his family’s reputation.

“Yes way!” Pazeon retorted. Every time her whiny voice came from his mouth, Gideon winced a little. “People like me a lot better than they like you.”

“It was your idea! You do it!”

“No, you’re going to do it, because you can use my amulet to read their minds before they even answer you. Yours is more stubborn in that area.”

“I don’t use it to read minds much. Look, we’ll do it at the same time, alright? I’ll go out the back end of the alley and around so it doesn’t look like we’re with each other.”

Pazeon glared at him, a feminine expression that involved widening her eyes instead of narrowing them and looked horrible on her masculine face. “Fine. But I’d better see you doing it too, or you’re gonna regret it.”

“Sure I am. There isn’t much you can do to me, Pazeon, seeing as I’m in your body. Not only is this already the worst torture imaginable, you can’t hurt me without hurting yourself.”

“ _Ugh!_ Gidica! Just do it!”

Ha. Gideon: 1, Pazeon: 1. 

Gideon started for the other end of the alleyway, giving up any attempts to look sneaky in this stupid dress. And Pazeon thought _he_ didn’t have a sense of subtly. He couldn’t move with all these triangles jangling around!

Speaking of triangles, these earrings were _heavy._ Gideon never understood why girls—or guys—wore pieces of metal hanging from their body. Especially ones that hurt. He was getting a headache. He would’ve taken them off a while ago had this outfit had pockets anywhere. How did girls survive without pockets?!

Once Gideon, in all his jangly glory, made it around the building and into the town square, he started for the most braindead person he could see: Lazy Susan, local diner owner.

“Ahem. . . Excuse me, miss?” He spoke in a high voice, just in case.

Lazy Susan turned around. “Well, well, lookie who we have here!” she said in her nasally-yet-drawling, would-rather-hear-nails-on-a-chalkboard voice. “I followed your advice and tried a new type of pie! I almost burned down the diner making it!” Her enthusiastic tone remained consistent even as she gave this bit of information.

Pacifica would give her charming little smile here, but Gideon wasn’t used to smiling. But he might as well try. Here goes. . .

His facial muscles slid easily into what he hoped was Pacifica’s “dealing with the public” face. It felt surprisingly natural, considering what Pacifica was really like, and that Gideon couldn’t remember the last time he smiled.

“That’s wonderful,” he told Lazy Susan, still in falsetto. “Tell me, does my voice sound any different to you? I’m afraid I might have a cold coming on, and I don’t want it to ruin my silky smooth voice.”

So maybe he could have a little fun as Pacifica.

The sarcasm was lost on Lazy Susan, though. “It doesn’t sound different at all, my dear!”

Gideon dropped the high voice. “Does it now?” He asked again, this time in his normal, much deeper voice.

“Nope!” Lazy Susan said, not even looking confused. “Your voice still sounds sweet as a peach, honey. And I just love that accent of yours!”

Gideon hadn’t even tried to talk in a Southern accent. So that settled it. His voice sounded like Pacifica to everyone _but_ Pacifica. Or, Pazeon.

“Thanks,” he said to Lazy Susan, not changing his voice, but flashing that smile again. Man, looking all nice and happy was easy in Pacifica’s body.

And that scared him.

Gideon left Lazy Susan and headed back for the alley, looking at Pazeon out of the corner of his eye. She was talking to a rich-looking man in a pink polo shirt that Gideon was sure he had seen over for dinner once or twice. He left her alone and slipped between the buildings, one of the stupid triangles on his skirt snagging on a brick.

It was only a minute before Pazeon joined him, walking far too gracefully considering she _wasn’t_ in a skirt anymore. “I sound like you,” she said, “according to that guy.”

“Likewise. I even get the accent thrown in. So, now that we know that, I’ll head over to the Mystery Museum and—”

“No!” Pazeon shrieked.

Gideon stared at her in surprise and then sighed. “What now?”

“You’re not going to the Mystery Museum! You’re going to go do my show!”

Another incredulous stare. “You have got to be kidding me! I’m not doing your show! The sooner I go fix your issue with Mabel, and the sooner you do whatever it is you have to for me, the sooner we can switch back!”

“Yes, but I have a show in a few hours, my, or, your hair looks horrible after our little escapade in the forest, and you have to go do it for me because I can’t do it in this stupid body!”

Gideon rubbed his forehead with a hand.

“Don’t do that! You’ll give me wrinkles!”

That was _it._ Gideon gave Pazeon his best glare, which probably wasn’t as effective with her face, but made her shriek in anger all the same. “Don’t you get it?” he snapped. “We’re stuck in each other’s bodies! And who knows how long we have to fix it before the change becomes permanent!”

That statement cut off any more comments about wrinkles and hair. Pazeon blinked. “Permanent?” she asked softly.

“You don’t want to risk that, do you?” Gideon replied.

Pazeon shook her head, a vacant look on her face.

“So,” Gideon said, grateful for her silence, “I’m going to go to the Tent of Telepathy and cancel your show somehow, and then I’ll go over to the Mystery Museum and apologize to Mabel for your trying to kill her.”

Pazeon looked like she had all sorts of objections to that statement, but she said only, “How are you going to cancel the show? I’ve never canceled a show.”

Gideon shrugged. “You’re a master at throwing tantrums, aren’t you?”

Pazeon huffed. “I don’t throw tantrums.”

Gideon gave her a _yeah right_ look.

Pazeon assumed a pouty face that Gideon never wanted to see on his features ever again. “Fine. Go tell them you’re too stressed or something. Or that you don’t get to spend enough time with your parents; that one should work really well. Make sure there’s a lot of yelling and crying. Maybe some blubbering too.”

The way Gideon saw it, he spent way too much time with his parents. But he knew Pazeon meant hers.

“Okay. _You_ go back to the manor and. . . I don’t know, apologize for being rude to my butler all the time. Maybe that’ll do it.”

“I dunno,” Pazeon said, a sly look crossing over her face. “If you have to apologize to Mabel as me, maybe I have to interact with Mabel as you somehow.”

Gideon frowned. “What on earth would you say to Mabel as me?”

“That you _like_ her, of course.”

There was a beat of silence as Gideon processed this. Then he shot Pazeon an annoyed look. “Really? That was a cheap shot. I’ve only met Mabel twice.”

Pazeon batted her eyelashes. _Gideon’s eyelashes!_ He immediately felt he was going to be sick. “From what they say, that’s long enough to fall in love.”

“Never, ever, ever, _ever_ do that with my face _ever again_ ,” Gideon replied, screwing his eyes shut to try to erase the image from his mind. All it really did was make his eyelashes stick together again.

“Pazeon, I don’t _like_ Mabel, alright? She can’t even handle herself in the face of danger.”

“What if you do?” Pazeon countered. “What if you don’t know it yet? If I go confess it to her for you, it might switch us back.”

Gideon couldn’t believe this. “And ruin what shred of dignity I have left?”

Pazeon stomped her foot. “You’re already ruining _my_ dignity by _apologizing_ to her! At the very least I should be able to do the same to you!”

Gideon’s mind was churning, trying to figure out a way out of this.

Then he got it.

“True,” he said slowly, “but even though you’re in my body, you’ll still have to say the words _I like you_ to Mabel.”

The color drained from Pazeon’s face. Gideon smirked.

“Never mind,” she finally said. “You can do all the talking to Mabel.”

“ _Thank_ you,” Gideon drawled. _Phew!_ That fixed that.

“Listen, about going to the manor,” he continued, when Pazeon stopped looking like she was about to faint. “If my father comes in and gives you a task to do, don’t argue, okay?”

“What kind of task?” Pazeon asked.

All satisfaction at embarrassing Pazeon just before left, and a feeling of dread sunk through Gideon’s stomach. He suddenly knew he had been avoiding this moment ever since he’d discovered Pacifica in his body.

He took a deep breath.

“My father sometimes gives me jobs to do with my amulet. Little things, usually, like exorcisms or whatever.” He hesitated, but then mentally shook his head. He couldn’t tell her about the memory wiping. He could only pray she wasn’t asked to do it. “You can try to _respectfully_ get out of it, if you really don’t know how to do it, but. . . .”

He closed his eyes, partly so he couldn’t see Pazeon’s curious face.

“Look. If my father brings out this little whistle and blows it with this really low sound. . . Do what he says, okay? Immediately.”

He cracked open an eye to see Pazeon frown. “Why?”

Gideon tried to ignore his twisting insides. He’d hoped he would never, ever have to reveal the whistle to Pacifica, even vaguely. “Because you don’t what to know what happens when you don’t.”

An idea started worming into his mind, but he pushed it away. _No_. That wasn’t the solution.

There was silence for a few seconds, though Gideon hardly noticed, busy as he was trying to control his mind.

“Gidica?”

He looked up at Pazeon and was surprised to see she actually looked. . . _concerned_. “Are you—?”

“Do you got that?” he asked, ignoring her question. She nodded.

“Good.” He took a deep, cleansing breath. “Time to go throw a tantrum, then.”


	8. Chapter 8

Mabel, Dipper, and Amanda sat around the living room watching TV. Mabel was on the floor, leaning against the comfy chair that served as a couch, while Dipper and Amanda shared the chair, sitting a little too close together in Mabel’s opinion.

She turned her attention back to the television, where they were watching a show Mabel had never heard of before coming to Gravity Rises. But it was serving to distract her from the guilt of eavesdropping earlier, and so she was content.

_“Private Magpie will return after these short messages.”_

_“ARE YOU SICK OF PILES OF OWLS CONSTANTLY BLOCKING YOUR DRIVEWAY? WELL THEN, YOU GOTTA GET OWL TROWEL!”_

Mabel raised an eyebrow. Some of the commercials in this town were. . . strange, to say the least. She was about to say something about it when the doorbell rang.

“Not it!” Dipper shouted.

“Not it!” Mabel said, a second behind him. “Aw, dang it.” She gave Dipper a mock glare and stood up, heading for the door, absently scratching her head as she went.

Her hand dropped when she opened the door. So did her mouth.

“Uh, hi,” Pacifica Pleasure said.

Mabel immediately went to slam the door, but Pacifica caught it with an outstretched hand. “Mabel—”

“What are you doing here?” Mabel hissed, covering up her internal panic by glaring fiercely at Pacifica.

“I—”

“How dare you show up here after what you’ve done. What, are you here to apologize?”

“Yes, actually.”

Mabel threw up her hands. “Well you can—wait, what?”

“I’m here to apologize.”

Mabel lowered her hands to her sides as she stared incredulously. Finally, she glared again and said, “What are you playing at, Pleasure?”

An expression flitted across Pacifica’s face, nearly unreadable. Was that. . . Amusement? Impression? But then it was gone, and Pacifica hesitated. Hmph. Probably deciding whether or not to lie.

“Nothing,” she finally said. “I’m really sorry for attacking you. I’m. . . Unstable. I need help, and I don’t know where to get it. So I’m sorry.”

Nothing anyone would say would convince Mabel that Pacifica was being sincere. And yet. . . she was being insincere in a way Mabel wasn’t expecting. It was like she found this. . . funny.

Mabel’s eyes narrowed. “Are you trying to mock me, Pacifica?”

“No! Please, you have to forgive me. I can’t live with myself knowing you hate me.”

“You can say things like that to me when you _mean_ them!” Mabel shot back, her voice rising. “How _dare_ you come and laugh at me and pretend to apologize like—like it’s nothing! Like what you did wasn’t even a big deal!”

She was shouting now. She braced herself in the doorway, vaguely aware of footfalls behind her.

“Mabel, what’s going—?”

Dipper stopped when he saw Pacifica. “What’re _you_ doing here?”

Pacifica let out a sigh that Mabel wouldn’t have expected from her _dainty_ way of moving. “I’m trying to apologize to Mabel, but it seems she doesn’t want to hear it.”

Mabel gave an indignant scoff, but Dipper started talking before she could. “You, apologize? To Mabel?” His eyes narrowed. “What are you playing at, Pleasure?”

Pacifica threw up her hands, much like Mabel had done earlier. “Never mind! Just know I’m sorry, okay, and let me know when you want to believe me.” She turned and stomped down the steps, giving heavier footfalls than Mabel thought possible.

It was only then that she realized Pacifica wasn’t wearing any shoes.

Dipper eased Mabel’s hands off the doorframe and closed the door. “You okay, Mabes?”

It took Mabel a moment to process that he was talking to her. “Y-yeah, I guess. That was. . . Weird.”

“Who was that?”

Mabel blinked and looked over her shoulder at Amanda. She had forgotten she was even there.

“What?” Amanda asked, which made Mabel realize she was staring.

“I guess we’re even now,” Mabel said without thinking.

“Wait, what?”

Dipper looked from Amanda to Mabel. “Uh, she meant with the person who was at the door. That was just, um, a girl Mabel has a bad history with.”

That was one way to put it. Mabel shot Dipper a grateful look for covering for her, as they both knew Mabel had meant she was even with Amanda.

Mabel had overheard Amanda’s phone call, and Amanda had overheard Mabel yelling at Pacifica.

The guilt from earlier eased into embarrassment as Mabel wondered just what Amanda had heard.

“ _We now return to Private Magpie,”_ chimed the TV.

Dipper led Mabel back to the living room without grabbing onto her, just brushing against her. Mabel sat down slowly, crossing her legs and trying to focus on the show, which featured a magpie that was smart enough to solve crimes.

The magpie squawked its annoying bird call, subtitles running along the bottom of the screen. “ _Sometimes, Officer, we private eyes have to do things we regret._ ”

Oh, geez, thanks, Mabel thought, rolling her eyes. Can’t even escape through television.

But, it’s what she had. So she did her best to push away thoughts of Amanda and Pacifica and thought of nothing but the crime-solving bird on the screen.

~~~~~

Gideon scowled down at his freezing feet. He _would_ be wearing shoes, if Pacifica knew what kind of shoes to _wear_ in the dead of winter. He was no fashion police, but nobody should be going about in heels if they didn’t want to twist their ankle. Although, come to think of it, Pacifica with a twisted ankle would be rather nice.

But not while _he_ was in her body.

He stopped at the tree line and turned his scowl to the Mystery Museum, which he had just left. Everything about his encounter with Mabel left him feeling angry. He wasn’t exactly sure what it was. Maybe he had been so surprised at her ferocity—considering how cowardly she’d been the last two times he’d met her. Or maybe it had felt like she was yelling at _him_. She was, after all, she just didn’t know it. And yet, she hadn’t just been angry. She’d been. . . panicked.

_Pacifica. . . Do you know what you’ve done to this girl?_

Gideon slipped into the trees so he couldn’t see the Museum anymore and leaned against a tree trunk. He had a lot of thoughts floating around the chamber of his mind that he tried to focus on and feelings coating the sides that he did his best to ignore. Finally, he came to one conclusion:

He couldn’t let Pacifica near Mabel. Not while in his body, not in her own. Who knew what would happen. At this point, he didn’t even know who would come out victorious.

But only one would come out unscathed, he was sure of that.

Now what? He had thrown a very convincing tantrum back at the Tent of Telepathy: _“Oh, please, I just can’t_ stand _being away from my parents so much! I can’t do the show today, I just can’t, I_ have _to see them!”_ He couldn’t go check on Pazeon, since he had very firmly ordered her this morning never to show up at his mansion again.

This morning.

He had been in his own body just this morning.

What time was it, anyway? His stomach growled in answer, telling him whatever time it was, it was past time to get something to eat. He winced at the feeling of hunger that was beginning to gnaw at him. This only happened when he was out on a long job, or lost track of time in the forest, and he hated it.

Well, he _had_ told the Tent of Telepathy staff he was going to be with Pacifica’s parents, and _they_ probably had food.

Gideon pushed himself off the tree trunk and headed back towards town, walking just inside the tree line so nobody in the Museum could see him.

~~~~~

“Alright, who’s ready to go reverse the polarity of a portal?”

Mabel looked up from the TV ( _“Don’t take another step, thief!”_ ) to see Ford trundling in, big wires strung over his shoulder, looking excited. It was a strange expression on his face, creasing his wrinkles into places they weren’t used to being. Before today, Mabel would’ve sworn he’d gotten those wrinkles from wearing a grumpy face 24/7.

“Me!” Dipper said, waving his hand in the air. “What does ‘reverse the polarity’ mean?”

Amanda laughed. “I’m on the same page as Dipper,” she said. “I hope you won’t need our help to do anything too complicated.”

“No, no, but you have to be there to go through. Your seal skin is in the car and—”

He stopped as Amanda’s face darkened. “What?”

“You. . . Moved my skin.” Her voice was quiet and emotionless, but the type of forced emotionless that was holding up a dam on the inside.

“I’m sorry, was that not alright with you?”

Amanda’s face had gone pale, and Dipper put a hand on hers. “Amanda, what’s wrong?”

Mabel grabbed the remote from the arm of the chair and switched off the TV.

“Amanda?” Ford asked, carefully.

Amanda took a breath that seemed simultaneously shallow and deep. Like she was trying to breathe deeply, but couldn’t. “In. . . In all of the stories, people capture selkies by. . . By stealing their skins. So they can’t. . . Get away.”

Mabel’s eyes widened.

Dipper gripped Amanda’s hand tighter and looked like he wanted to say something, but Ford beat him to it. The old man dropped his equipment (gently) and knelt down so he was looking Amanda in the eye. “Amanda,” he said, “I am very, very sorry that I scared you. I _promise_ you are not in any danger here, and that I never meant to worry you. I won’t touch your seal skin from now on, alright? Are you going to be okay?”

Mabel was amazed. Not a condescending inflection was audible in Ford’s little speech. Where was that tone of voice when he was talking to her and Dipper? He would’ve told _them_ to suck it up or something.

Amanda nodded slowly. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be okay. Sorry, I just. . . .” She shook her head. “Thanks. I know you didn’t mean anything.”

“Okay,” Ford said, giving her a little smile. “Are you ready to go?”

She nodded, easing her hand out from under Dipper’s. He gave her a reassuring little grin, which she returned, and the two got up and headed for the car.

“Well, those two are nice and friendly,” Ford commented, picking up his equipment and slinging it back over his shoulder. He didn’t sound as nice as he did to Amanda, but he wasn’t in normal gruff mode either.

Mabel decided now was the best time to ask.

“Um, Grunkle Ford?”

“Yes?”

“I-is there anything I can do to help? With the portal.”

Ford glanced at her for a moment. “Oh. Yes, you can certainly help hold things in place and such.”

Mabel bit her lip. “Can you. . . Teach me how you do it?”

That got Ford’s attention. He looked down at her, a surprised look on his face. “Why?” he finally asked.

Mabel’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Be-because I want to learn!” she said. “You know all this cool stuff about the supernatural, a-and I love that kind of stuff! I wanna learn about it! So. . . Will you teach me?”

She hadn’t known what to expect, but she _hadn’t_ been expecting Ford to be surprised. Shocked, even. An entire conversation passed over his face in an instant, and the open, stunned expression closed into hardened, stalwart one. “No.”

“But—”

“Mabel, we’re going to help Amanda get home, because that’s what we need to do. But that’s it.”

“But Grunkle Ford!”

“You can watch, you can help, but I’m not explaining. We’re doing this out of necessity only.”

“But can’t you—”

Ford cut her off by turning his back on her and walking out.

Mabel stood alone in the living room, mouth agape, watching him go. Where was the gentility and kindness he had shown Amanda? Where was that adventurous spark Melody claimed he once had? And why wouldn’t he at least use this opportunity to teach Mabel about some of what he did? Or, used to do.

Her feet started moving of their own accord, plodding towards the door to join her family. It felt like her brain was frozen jello, thoughts squeezing through the suspended mass in a painful trickle. It suddenly dawned on Mabel that she was getting into the car, but the last she’d been attentive, she was still in the living room.

“Mabes? You okay?”

Mabel nodded absently at her brother, not really caring if it was convincing. In her mind’s eye, she could see the Journal, its six-fingered hand cocooning the 3 emblazoned on the cover. That couldn’t have been written by Ford. Not the Ford she knew. If he really had once been the frantic, excited writer that scrawled across the pages of not just one, but three journals, then something huge must’ve happened to change that.

_What was it?_

~~~~~

Dipper’s eyes strayed to Mabel again. He was trying to stay focused on Amanda, because she really was interested in what she had to say—especially because it was about being a seal. How cool was that! Dipper had heard of mermaids and such, but never _selkies_. Amanda was so lucky to be one—and he was lucky to know one!

But then his eyes would catch on Mabel again.

Her gaze was locked on the seat ahead of her, but her eyes were unfocused. Most of her was stock still, but occasionally her mouth moved to form vague, soundless words.

Yep. She was in one of her trances.

Part of Dipper was glad he had Amanda to talk to, since Mabel was _out of commission,_ but another part was worried about his sister. And when wasn’t he? Sometimes it felt all he did was worry about Mabel. His parents told him it was sweet, but Mabel used to tell him it was annoying. And yet. . . Ever since they’d come to Gravity Rises, she’d stopped doing that. She’d started relying on Dipper more, like he’d always wanted her to. He finally felt like a useful twin.

But, the fact that Mabel let him worry about her worried him even more.

“Dipper?”

He blinked, snapping his eyes back to Amanda. “Yeah! That’s awesome!” _Oh crap!_ He had lost focus while Amanda was talking to him! He didn’t want to do anything to upset her, not with that beautiful smile she flashed on him. He couldn’t live without that smile.

 _Couldn’t live without that smile._ Ha. Mabel would tell him he was being dramatic, and that Amanda was just another crush. But she _wasn’t_! None of his crushes were! They were all special.

His mind flashed to fairies and purple glows, and he nearly rolled his eyes. _Special_.

“You think it’s awesome that I nearly got caught in that net?” Amanda was asking. For a millisecond, Dipper panicked, but then he picked up on the raised eyebrow on her face and the _gotcha_ tone in her voice.

“Oh, no, sorry. I was distracted. I don’t get distracted easily, though. That’s kinda Mabel’s thing.” He glanced over to her again, deep as ever in her trance. “Like now. Anyway. Sorry. What were you saying?”

“I was saying there are dangers to being a selkie.”

“Yeah, but it’s worth it, right?”

Amanda let out a small laugh and smiled. That _smile!_ “Yeah. Yeah, it’s worth it.”

The car rolled to a stop, and as it bumped and slowed, Dipper’s stomach lurched. Wasn’t the car ride supposed to take longer? Truth be told, he didn’t really want Amanda to leave. He’d only known her for a few hours, and she was the best girl he’d met all winter. And considering one girl had already turned out to be psycho, the chances of that happening with Amanda were virtually nil! But what if Ford fixed that portal up, and Amanda went through, and then Dipper never saw her again?

“Hey, kids!” Melody had turned around in her seat to address them all, while Ford got out of the car. Mabel’s eyes flicked up in Melody’s direction, but she didn’t seem to really _snap_ _out_ of it. “Guess what!”

Dipper gasped. “You bought us all chinchillas with adorable hats!” He loved playing guessing games.

Melody laughed. “Nope. Since our little ice skating party got interrupted earlier, I brought the skates along! Who knows how long Mister Ford will be workin’ on that portal. So while he’s busy, y’all can skate some more.”

“That’s awesome!” Not as good as chinchillas in hats, but he knew that was a long shot anyway. “Do you have some for Amanda?”

“Amanda can have mine,” Mabel said quietly.

Every head in the car turned to her, and for a second the only sound that could be heard was Ford rummaging in the trunk of the car. “You don’t wanna skate, Mabes?” Dipper asked, before anyone else could say anything. He didn’t trust anybody else to deal with Mabel in this half-trance state.

“I’m going to help Ford with the portal,” she said, still quiet. She wasn’t meeting anyone’s eyes, but Dipper could see a hardness that told him she’d been thinking long and hard over that statement. Uh-oh. Ford and Mabel had been the last ones in the car. Had he said something to her? Had he hurt her?

“You’re still going to need ice skates for that,” Melody pointed out. “Actually, since the portal is underwater, I don’t exactly know Mister Ford’s plan. You’ll have to ask him. But, anyway, I _did_ bring skates for Amanda, so, s’all good.”

“Thanks—um—” Amanda cut off, looking embarrassed.

“Melody.”

“Oh. Right. Thanks, Melody.” She flashed her a smile. Dipper wondered if cloudy, miserable days were caused by Amanda not smiling.

“You’re welcome,” Melody said with a wink, opening her car door and sliding out, keys jangling in her hand.

Dipper got out on his side and held the door for Amanda, all gentlemanly-like. Girls liked gentlemen. He bowed for her slightly as she stood up, which made her laugh. And, of course, when she was laughing, she was smiling. She had her seal skin over her shoulder, but she made an attempt to curtsy back. “What a gentleman,” she said.

_Score!_

Dipper turned to follow Amanda away from the car when he realized that Mabel hadn’t gotten out yet. He stuck his head back in. “You coming, Mabes?”

She looked up at him, her eyes finally clearing. Good, she was engaged in the real world again. “Um, yeah. Just give me a minute.”

“That was a pretty long trance. You okay?” He’d had the sense not to mention it when Melody and Amanda were in the car, but he had to say _something_.

“Yeah, I’ll be okay.”

“Okay.” Dipper straightened and closed the car door, but her words weren’t lost on him. She said _I’ll be okay,_ not _I am okay_. Which probably meant she _wasn’t_ okay.

By this point, the word _okay_ didn’t even seem like a real word anymore, Dipper had thought it so much in the last few seconds. Mabel had a phrase for that. . . What was it? Sympathetic. . . No, saturn. . . Semantic satiation! That was it!

Dipper ran a few yards to catch up with Amanda. “So, my lady,” he said, keeping up with the gentleman theme, “why don’t we. . . What is it?”

Amanda had stopped moving and was looking out over the lake. Dipper followed her line of sight.

“Oh.”

About a dozen people were out skating already.

“Looks like the rest of Gravity Rises had the same idea we did,” Dipper said. “Not to reverse the direction of a portal, but, y’know, to come skate.”

While he waited for Amanda to reply, he scanned the small crowd. He picked out Robbie and Wendy and a few more teenagers, Candy and Greyson—sweet, they could meet Amanda!—and. . . Was that Gideon Northwest?

Greaaaaaat.

“Um, I guess we should hide my seal skin somewhere,” Amanda said.

Dipper glanced at her, but she didn’t glance back. “Oh, right, I guess we should,” he replied. “Maybe in the car?” Then he remembered Mabel was still in there. “I can go put it there for you!”

Amanda shook her head. “Sorry, my gentleman, but only I get to touch the skin. Thanks for offering, though.”

She leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

Dipper’s mouth dropped open, and he turned his head as she walked away, his eyes not willing to look anywhere else. Then, slowly, his open mouth turned into a huge smile.

“Look at you go.”

Dipper blinked and looked to the source of the voice. It was Mabel! He hadn’t even seen her get out of the car or heard her approach. She had a small, wry smile on her face.

“Did you see that?” Dipper squeaked.

Mabel nodded. “You’re quite the ladies man.” Her smile dropped. “So, um, did you see where Ford went?”

Dipper shrugged and pointed. “That way, maybe? I was kinda. . . Focused on something else.” His grin refused to go away.

“Okay, thanks.” Mabel turned to go.

Dipper’s smile finally dropped as he registered the tone of her voice. “Mabel,” he said.

She looked over her shoulder.

“Did Ford say something to you? Back at the house?”

She stared at him for a moment, probably debating on what to say. “Nothing that I can’t fix,” she said, looking determined.

Uh-oh. That meant it was bad. Not only was it bad, but it was the type of bad that Dipper wasn’t allowed to help with. Mabel was in Hero of Her Own Story mode, which meant Ford had better watch out.

Mabel left before Dipper could say anything, and he watched her go with a sigh. Sometimes the tension between Mabel and Ford was hard to live with.

“Alright, I’m back! Ready to go skating?”

. . . But Dipper could live with it as long as Amanda was around. He turned a big smile on her, one fueled by the memory of her kiss, and said, “Absolutely!”

As the two headed toward the lake, Dipper decided something right then and there.

Before Amanda left—something he didn’t want to think about—he was going to get his first kiss with her.


	9. Chapter 9

Pacifica hadn’t been sure what to expect when she went to Gideon’s mansion. But she certainly hadn’t been expecting her, or Gideon’s, butler to tell her to get ready for a family ice skating outing.

“Why do _we_ have to go?” she had asked Mrs. Northwest, using the snobbiest voice she could.

“I don’t want to either, believe me,” Geneva Northwest replied, pulling on a fur coat that probably cost more than one of Pacifica’s assistants earned in a month. Pacifica liked her style. “You know Mother hates the cold. But your father thinks it would be a good time to remind the townspeople that we’re one of them.”

“Are we one of them?” Pacifica drawled in Gideon’s lazy cadence. Though she’d never speak like this in her body, it was natural in his.

“No, darling, we’re not. But it’s good to pretend. It keeps them from prying into our lives too much.”

Pacifica wondered if a gruff “ _Don’t call me ‘darling’,”_ would be something Gideon would say, but then decided against it. Just in case.

“Go get out in the limo, Gideon; your manservant already put your ice skates out there.” Geneva had put an earring in her ear, making Pacifica wish she could have her own.

“Yes, Mother.”

“And Gideon?”

“Yes?”

Geneva turned from her mirror and gave a little sigh. “Try to look happy, alright? To the common folk, we’re a perfect, happy family who has everything they could want. And we are perfect, and we do have everything we could want, but we’re not always. . . Happy.”

Pacifica wondered how Gideon would react to this. She had a feeling his mother didn’t say things like this often. She’d settled on a nod and an, “Alright, Mother.”

So now she was ice skating near Gideon’s parents in slow, lazy strokes. A good amount of the town was out on the lake, and Pacifica realized she didn’t even know most of them. She could pick out people she had read at her shows, but couldn’t remember anything about them. She never held onto that information; it didn’t matter outside the show. She could even see the sibling trio that had shown up for a midnight séance last night, but could only remember how tired she was.

_Last night._

She had been in her own body last night.

She looked down at Gideon’s stocky chest and legs with a sigh. She _had_ to switch back. She couldn’t be stuck in this body forever!

Her eyes scanned the lake again, not really taking in the. . . .

Wait.

Was that. . . ?

Her eyes focused. _Dipper!_ Dipper Pines was here! Pacifica quickly looked around for Mabel, but luckily couldn’t see her. _Good_. By no means could she face Mabel in this body. If that girl found out about the switch, she could take advantage of it and attack!

But Dipper, Dipper was here. Pacifica watched him dreamily for a moment. He was so. . . .

Who was that?

There was someone with Dipper! Another girl! They stepped out onto the lake on their skates and starting gliding on the ice, talking and laughing. Pacifica didn’t recognize the girl, but that didn’t mean much; she didn’t recognize most of the people out on the lake.

_Dipper was with another girl._

Pacifica _had_ to do something!

She nearly started skating over right away, but then stopped herself. She was in Gideon’s body, which meant she needed a plan. A plan to get Dipper away from the girl and thinking about Pacifica without knowing he was actually talking to Pacifica.

 _Piece of cake,_ Pacifica thought sarcastically.

But then, she started getting an idea.

Maybe. . . Just maybe, if Gidica had to apologize to Mabel for Pacifica, maybe Pacifica had to apologize to _Dipper_ for _Gideon!_ Pacifica didn’t know what had happened between the two, but she was sure Gideon had been a jerk to him at some point. Gideon was a jerk to everyone.

Pacifica smiled to herself and started skating over.

“—never talked like that before,” Dipper was saying to his little friend. “Mabel and I were really surprised because he’s usually—”

“Hey, Dipper.”

Pacifica tried to make her voice gruff, even though it would come out as Gideon’s voice all the same. Under no circumstances could she sound flirtatious. Not in this body.

Dipper looked up in surprise, and then folded his arms. “Gideon Northwest,” he said, eyes narrowing.

An overwhelming urge to tell Dipper that it was really her swept over Pacifica, but she fought it down. _No!_ It wasn’t that she couldn’t trust Dipper, it was that she couldn’t trust him to keep the information from his devious twin sister.

“Dipper Pines,” she replied. “Who’s your friend?”

Dipper didn’t answer, but instead searched Pacifica’s face.

“Amanda,” the girl broke in after an awkward silence. “I’m Amanda. I’m. . . staying with the Pines for a bit.”

Pacifica nodded. Would Gideon think this girl was pretty? She certainly was pretty, but in a very _plain_ way. She hoped Dipper realized Pacifica obviously looked better. Well, when she was in her own body, of course. “Nice to meet you,” she said to Amanda, keep a touch of insincerity that always laced Gideon’s words.

“So what are you doing over here, Northwest?” Dipper asked, arms still folded. Pacifica fought another urge to tell him the truth. Her Dipper, usually open and happy, was guarded and suspicious, and she could hardly stand it. So, to cope, she thought of this like a show. She was playing the part of Gideon, and she would do it the best she could.

“Well, I’m here to ice skate, like everybody else.” It was the type of sarcastic thing Gideon would say, she was sure of it.

“I meant right _here_ ,” Dipper said.

Pacifica pretended to hesitate. “Well, I came over here to apologize,” she said, dropping some of the confidence from her voice.

Dipper raised an eyebrow, an expression Pacifica was pretty sure he couldn’t hold for long without laughing. Oh, she wished she could make him laugh.

“I’m sorry,” she finally said, acting like it was painful to say. _I’m sorry I can’t be with you as myself, because if I was, you’d have much better company than this Amanda girl._ “For being a jerk to you. The other day.”

When would Gideon have been a jerk to Dipper, anyway? Maybe that day that he had gone to take care of those Mabel clones. Pacifica hadn’t seen Dipper that day, but maybe Gideon had.

“And for talking bad about my sister?” Dipper was saying.

“Yeah. And for that. Sorry, man.” Would Gideon say “man”? That sounded like a guy thing, right?

Dipper’s eyes were still squinting at Pacifica. Finally, he said, “Do you and Pacifica have a bet or something?”

Pacifica blinked. “What?”

“Well, she showed up at our house earlier, apparently to apologize to Mabel. And now you’re apologizing to me. So, what, do you guys have a bet?”

Great idea! “Um, yeah,” Pacifica said. “Yeah, we had an agreement to apologize to you guys and all that—but I do mean it. So, are we good?”

Dipper rolled his eyes.

“C’mon, just say you forgive me.” Never hurt to be thorough. Oh, this had _better_ get her back in her beautiful body!

“Fine,” Dipper said, “I forgive you. But you better mean it!”

“I do,” Pacifica said. She stood there for a moment, waiting. _Please switch back please switch back—_

“Well, we’ll be going now,” Dipper said, starting to skate away with Amanda.

Pacifica nearly called out, “ _Wait!”_ but stopped herself just in time. “Okay. Thanks, man.”

Dipper didn’t look back at her, and Pacifica watched him go, hating Amanda for being with him and hating Gideon for being in her body.

“Gideon, darling, who was that?”

Pacifica looked over her shoulder to see Gideon’s parents skating up to her, arm in arm. Gaston Northwest looked uninterested, but Geneva looked curious.

“Oh, a commoner who tries to talk to me sometimes,” Pacifica said dismissively, remembering to play her role. “I decided to humor him today, since we’re here in the first place.”

Geneva’s wide lips stretched into a smile. “Good for you, Gideon.”

Gaston nodded. “Keep up the family image,” is all he said, but he seemed approving. Pacifica found herself feeling. . . Proud?

_Oh no. Please tell me I’m not starting to feel what Gideon would be feeling. Why have we not switched back?!_

“Gideon?”

Pacifica blinked back into the present. “Thank you,” she said to her—wait, no, Gideon’s!—parents.

Geneva put a hand on Gaston’s arm. “Honey, I saw Mr. Jefferies and his family a minute ago. Now would be a perfect time to go talk to him about that dinner. Why don’t you go over and start that, and Gideon and I will catch up with you in a moment?”

“Alright,” Gaston said with a thoughtful nod. “Having you come up a little later might help convince him to come. I’ll see you in a moment, then.” With a kiss on Geneva’s cheek that neither of them seemed to enjoy, Gaston skated off.

Pacifica had a nagging feeling that Geneva wanted some alone time with her son. _Well, I’m not your son! Have whatever conversation this is later!_

“Gideon, dear, are you doing alright?”

Uh-oh. Mothers were perceptive, from what Pacifica had heard. Geneva had noticed something was off, hadn’t she?

“Of course,” Pacifica said, trying to sound nonchalant. “Why?”

“Well. . . ,” Geneva began, “I know some of the things your father has you do. And some of the people you’ve. . . worked with before are here, correct?”

 _ThisconversationisnotformeI’mnotsupposedtobelisteningtothisIdon’t—_ “Yes. But I’m fine. I know how to keep work separate from the rest of my life.” Well, that was certainly true for Pacifica as well as Gideon. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder what kind of work Geneva was talking about. Gideon had mentioned little jobs like exorcisms, but as far as Pacifica knew, possessions weren’t common around Gravity Rises. Otherwise she would’ve sensed them.

Geneva studied her son—or, who she thought was her son—for a moment. “Alright. Let’s go join your father.”

Pacifica skated after her— _Gideon’s!_ —mother, wondering two things: What was this work Gideon did? And—

_Why wasn’t she back in her own body?_

~~~~~

Gideon sighed and tried to sit back, but this skirt made it virtually impossible. _Ugh._ He stood up from the armchair and instead settled on the floor, where the skirt ballooned around him. Could he change? Did Pacifica even have normal clothes? Was he comfortable changing clothes while in this body?

Well, the answer to that last question was a resounding _no._

Bud Pleasure poked his head around the corner. “Pacifica, darling, did you get enough to eat?”

Gideon smiled at him, hating how easy it was. “Yes I did, Daddy. Thank you.” It was strange; part of his words were acting as he thought Pacifica would act, but some just came out naturally.

_I really, really hope that doesn’t mean we’re settling in each other’s bodies._

It’d be just his luck.

“You know, sweetheart, I’ve heard a lot of the town is going out ice skating on the lake today,” Bud said, fully entering the living room. “Since you canceled your show to be with your mother and I, why don’t we all go as a family? Won’t that be fun?”

Gideon suppressed a groan. No, it didn’t sound fun at all. He just wanted to sit here and wait for him and Pacifica to switch bodies back. But, considering it had been a while since he’d apologized to Mabel, sitting here probably wasn’t going to help anything. “That does sound fun, Daddy!” He teetered on what to say next, but then went for it. “Say, you don’t have a change of clothes for me here, do you? Since I’m not doing my show today, I might as well dress up like a normal teen.” He threw in a little laugh to punctuate his words.

“Of course we do, darling,” Bud replied, with a gesture down the hall. “We’ve kept a room for you ever since you got back in case you wanted to come live with us instead of that little trailer of yours.” He immediately looked nervous after saying this. Gideon had a feeling Pacifica had strongly denied this offer in the past.

“Oh, right,” Gideon said with a token Pacifica smile. “Thanks, Daddy.”

He stood up with some difficulty, his hurry to be out of this _stupid skirt_ overruling any other thoughts.

About ten minutes later, Gideon was in a relatively normal outfit. He kept the black tight leggings things on, but put on normal winter boots and a much more flexible knee-length skirt over them, and a cotton long-sleeve shirt instead of Pacifica’s suffocating one, with a winter jacket over it. Gone were the weird shawl and the way-too-long gloves. He might still be wearing girl clothes, but at least he wasn’t wearing _that_ outfit anymore!

He looked in the mirror. He hoped these colors looked okay together. He knew _nothing_ about fashion, just what he thought was cool, but if Pazeon happened to be at the lake too, he knew she’d chew him out for his appearance, since it was technically _her_ appearance. The skirt was a pale purple, the shirt was white, the jacket and boots were grey, and, of course, the amulet, tied around his neck, was purple. You couldn’t go wrong with one bright and otherwise neutral colors, right?

_Why was he caring about this?_

He had to get out of this body as soon as possible!

He patted his hair tentatively. It didn’t feel like hair, it felt like straw. Was this what hairspray felt like? How did Pacifica stand it?

Bud hadn’t given him a time limit; Gideon assumed Pacifica took as much time as she needed to get ready at any given time. Did he dare try to take Pacifica’s hairdo out? It looked out of place with his “normal” clothes, but he didn’t know if he could brush it out.

No, he decided, if he messed with her hair, Pacifica might _really_ get mad at him. This day was already bad enough without that. He patted some stray hairs in and left the mirror before he could fuss with anything else.

_Pacifica, if I’ve done my part, please do something to switch us back so you can worry about your own hair._

He went back out to the living room, where Bud was there to greet him with a “You look beautiful, sweetheart!” and a pair of ice skates. Pacifica’s mother was there too, whose name Gideon didn’t know, looking vaguely off into the distance, her face framed by curly grey hair.

Gideon suddenly felt like he had been moving at 80 miles an hour and had slammed to a stop. He stared at Mrs. Pleasure before remembering where he was and looking away, his face heating up.

_It was her._

Gideon forced himself to ignore her, to smile at Bud and take the ice skates, to get in their quaint little car and sit quietly. But as soon as the car was rumbling along the winter roads, he let his eyes travel back and forth between Bud and his wife.

 _It was_ her.

Gideon closed his eyes as a mental image began to form. A dark room. A purple-robed, hooded man. A woman with a bag over her head. The hood and the bag, taken off. Bud Pleasure and a woman he had never seen, afraid. An instruction from Gideon’s father.

_“Now, Gideon, this woman has seen things she wasn’t supposed to see. It’s our job to make sure she doesn’t remember seeing them. It’s your job to use that amulet of yours to erase the memories.”_

_“Doesn’t that hurt?”_

Laughter, but with no mirth. _“No, it doesn’t hurt. She won’t feel or remember a thing. Now, hold the amulet in your hand. . . .”_

The first time he had ever used his amulet against another human. Eight years old.

_“Father, why is she shaking? Father?”_

_“Son, take the amulet and leave. Now!”_

Something had gone wrong. Something he had done. . . .

The woman was Pacifica’s mother. _Bud’s wife._ Gideon had heard of the shy woman who rarely left the house, but he’d never connected. . . He’d never thought. . . .

He remembered another day, a few months later. Walking in the woods with Pacifica, testing out their amulets. _“Pacifica, are your parents nice?”_

It had just come out, but he’d wanted to know. Did other parents use whistles like his did?

 _“I guess,”_ she had said. _“Daddy’s really loud all the time and is_ too _nice to strangers if you ask me. Mommy doesn’t do much. She just wanders around and cleans the house. Daddy says her grey hair is rare and really pretty. If you ask me it just makes her look old.”_

Gideon stared at his hands, which twisted in his lap. _He did this._ Six years ago. _He’d done the memory job wrong and ruined her mind._

And Bud. . . Bud knew. Not that Gideon was in Pacifica’s body, but that Gideon was responsible. And he never came and said anything to the Northwests. Not anything Gideon was aware of.

_No. Gideon wasn’t at fault. Bud had subject his own wife to this. Gideon’s father had subject had him do this._

It was strange. Gideon never felt guilt for the memory jobs. Why should he? He was just doing what he was told.

But that first job. The only one he had ever messed up.

 _I have to get out of this car. I have to get out of this body. I can’t live as Pacifica and I_ can’t _be around this woman any longer._

Was this. . . Was this guilt?

_And I can’t handle feeling this anymore._


	10. Chapter 10

Dipper glanced over his shoulder to see Gideon Northwest talking to his parents. What was his deal? His and Pacifica’s. Turning apologies into games! Now Dipper could see why Mabel had reacted so strongly to Pacifica’s attempt earlier. It wasn’t fun to have your feelings dismissed so easily.

 _Jerk_.

“Hey, Dipper!”

Dipper looked up at the sound of a deep voice. It was Candy and Greyson, skating towards them! “Hi guys!” he said. “C’mon, Amanda, come meet my friends!”

Putting Gideon out of his mind, Dipper picked up the pace and skated over to his friends, Amanda behind him.

“Woah, Dipper, you’re a good skater,” Greyson said when Dipper slid to a stop in front of him.

“Thanks! I just learned today. Hi Candy!”

“Hi,” Candy said. Dipper frowned at the lack-luster response. What was that look on her face?

“This is my friend Amanda,” he said, gesturing to her. “She’s staying with us for a while.”

“I’m Greyson,” Greyson told Amanda with a smile. He glanced at Candy, who looked away, face reddening. “And this is Candy.”

What was up with her? Candy wasn’t one to get embarrassed, was she?

“Hi,” Amanda said, smiling. She glanced past Greyson and Candy, and Dipper followed her gaze to see Mabel and Ford, skating out carefully with equipment in their arms. The hole that Dipper, Amanda, and Melody had made earlier was sectioned off by some brightly colored poles and tape, showing not to go near the area. Good, that should mean Mabel and Ford were left alone while they did their work.

“So how do you know Dipper?” Candy asked. Her voice sounded forced. Was she angry about something?

Amanda blinked. “Um, we just met this morning,” she said. “I’m passing through town, and Mister Ford offered to let me stay at their house.”

“Ford?” Greyson asked. “Isn’t that your six-fingered uncle?”

“My great uncle, yeah,” Dipper said.

“Wait!” Amanda cut in. “Six fingers? He has—” she paused to think. “He does! He has six fingers!” she said in awe.

“Yep. Mabel says it’s called—” Dipper stopped. Uh-oh. What was the word? He’d better remember or he’d sound stupid. “Polydactyly! That’s what it’s called. When you have extra fingers or toes.”

“That’s a cool word,” Greyson said.

Amanda giggled. “I wonder if Ford has six toes too.”

Dipper’s face lit up. “That—would—be— _awesome!_ ”

Candy muttered something under her breath.

“What’s that, Candy?” Dipper asked.

Candy’s eyes widened. “Oh, um, I said, yeah, that would be awesome.”

Dipper grinned at her and then looked over at Amanda, about to say something. But then he stopped. Amanda was looking uncomfortable. What the heck was going on? Dipper was oblivious to something in this situation and he did _not_ like that feeling.

And when Dipper was uncomfortable, he talked.

“So guys, you won’t believe what I found the other day. It was this stick as tall as me, but it was twisted, like, I dunno, Wandelf’s staff. It was awesome!”

“Wandelf?” Greyson asked.

Dipper’s jaw dropped. “Wait, you’ve seen Master of the Charms, haven’t you?!”

Greyson and Candy shook their heads.

“Amanda, you’ve seen it, haven’t you?” Dipper asked, turning on her as if he was desperate. But really, he was relieved to have control of the situation.

“Yeah, of course. Those movies are awesome.”

Dipper turned back to Greyson and Candy and shook his head. “We need to have a marathon of all the cool movies you guys haven’t seen.”

“My mom says movies and TV rot your brain,” Greyson said matter-of-factly.

Dipper waved a dismissive hand. “No way, dude, movies stretch your brain by showing you the impossible!” He paused, impressed with this statement. “I should be an advertiser or something,” he said with a grin.

“Dipper,” Amanda said quietly.

“But anyway, Master of the Charms is awesome. And Wandelf is this wizard who has the coolest magic battles—” his mouth stuttered to a halt as his brain registered that Amanda had said something.

“Dipper,” she said again, this time touching his arm.

“What?” he asked, and she winced. Oops. Was this one of those times where he was supposed to be, what was the word Mabel used, ‘discreet’?

Amanda used her eyes to point to a spot over Candy’s shoulder. Candy, unfortunately, seemed to think she was looking at her. “Something to say?” she demanded, moving forward on her skates. Greyson grabbed her shoulder. Dipper spared them only a moment of attention, for his eyes had just caught on to what Amanda was gesturing to.

Mabel and Ford, in the middle of the lake, were fighting.

“Um, Amanda and I should go,” Dipper said. “Nice seeing you guys!”

“Yeah, nice meeting you,” Amanda said, though it didn’t sound as sincere. Dipper started skating away, looking back to make sure Amanda was following. She was following, but she was leaving behind what looked to be a very angry Candy, red in the face and held back by Greyson.

Geez, what was _that_ all about?

He couldn’t focus on that now.

As he skated closer to Mabel and Ford, he could start to make out their words. They weren’t shouting yet; at least, they hadn’t attracted the attention of any townspeople, but they were _definitely_ angry at each other. Dipper didn’t know about an angry Ford, but an angry Mabel was a _bad thing._ She’d already had an outburst this morning, which should’ve warned Dipper she would have another one soon enough.

“Mabel, I’ve already told you, I’m not going to—”

“But you _should!_ I want to learn from you, Grunkle Ford, and you can teach me!”

“I’m not willing to put you at risk, Mabel.”

“ _Risk!_ Showing me how a portal works isn’t risky!”

“Oh really?” Ford, who had been kneeling, got to his feet and stared Mabel down. “It’s not risky to be near something that could send you to the other end of the country? It’s not risky to be near electrical equipment that’s inside water? It’s not risky to be standing next to a hole in ice that you could fall into?”

Mabel’s face reddened, but she didn’t say anything. Dipper was _not_ liking how this was going, but Amanda held him back at a respectful distance.

“And even if this wasn’t risky,” Ford said, clearly in control now, “I’m not going to get started. Because if I teach you about this one thing, you’ll want to know more. And more. Until one day I have to call your parents and tell them you’ve been seriously hurt or worse, and it was my fault because I wanted to show you something interesting. Is that what you want, Mabel?”

Dipper couldn’t see Mabel’s face clearly from here, but her silence and the shade of her cheeks told him that she was trying not to cry. After a few moments of silence, she finally said, “You really think I wouldn’t be able to take care of myself?” Her voice was holding back a dam of emotion. Barely.

Ford eyes widened. _Good_. At least he knew he had crossed a line now! Dipper stayed back, partly because Amanda had a hand out to stop him and partly because he knew jumping in would make things even worse, but he was _mad_. _No one_ was allowed to treat his sister that way.

“That’s not what I said, Mabel,” his tone more gentle, but definitely not as gentle as he had been with Amanda. “Even the most experienced explorers can get themselves into situations they can’t get out of unharmed.”

“But you’re not even willing to give me a chance.”

Ford paused. “No. No, it’s too dangerous.”

_Lemme at ‘im lemme at ‘im lemme at ‘im!_

“Now please, Mabel,” Ford continued, his _please_ sounding more demanding than asking, “go skate with Dipper and Amanda until I can. . . .”

His voice trailed off as he suddenly seemed to notice Dipper and Amanda standing there. Dipper didn’t know what he looked like, but his face was hot, and his heart was pounding, and his fists were clenched. So he was pretty sure Ford could figure out what he was feeling.

Mabel looked too when Ford didn’t finish his sentence. Her eyes widened slightly, showing Dipper they were slightly wet. She turned between his great uncle and her twin brother in a tense silence before squaring her jaw and skating determinedly towards Dipper.

Ford looked like he wanted to say something, but a glare from Dipper kept him quiet. When Mabel reached Dipper, he turned around, put an arm around her, and started skating with her. She tensed at the touch but didn’t shrug him off.

One glare backwards told him that Amanda was following and Ford was watching, an unreadable but definitely negative emotion on his face.

“Mabel,” Dipper said softly.

“Let’s go,” was all she said, her voice low and gravelly, wiping her face with her sleeve.

So the twins, Amanda behind them, skated away from Ford, silent on the outside but fuming on the inside.

Dipper hardly even registered Pacifica Pleasure and Gideon Northwest talking a few yards away.

~~~~~

Pacifica looked Gidica up and down and sighed. “Well, you tried.”

“Yeah,” Gidica said, scowling, “and that’s what scares me. Anyway, I went and apologized to Mabel, although she didn’t believe me at _all_.”

“Good,” Pacifica replied.

Gidica rolled his eyes. “What have _you_ done?”

Pacifica folded her arms. “For your information, I saw Dipper Pines, so I went up and apologized to _him_. I assumed you had been a jerk to him at one point and I was right.”

Gidica frowned. “So. . . We both apologized to a Pines twin. . . And we’re still in these bodies?”

Pacifica’s arms dropped to her sides. “Yeah,” she said. “I guess that wasn’t it.”

There was a sobering silence as this sunk in.

“We have to switch back, Gideon,” Pacifica blurted, unable to keep it in anymore.

“I know.”

“I can’t stand being you anymore!”

“I _know_.”

They lapsed into silence again as Pacifica realized he was thinking. Well, she could think too. What was it? What was the answer? What did they have to do?

She gasped.

Gidica jumped back before he realized what she was doing. “Don’t gasp like that, Pazeon, it sounds like you’ve witnessed a murder!”

Pacifica waved a dismissive hand. “I don’t sound like that when I witness murders. Gidica, I’ve got it! Or at least an idea!”

“What?” He sounded suspicious, but also desperate. They were both desperate.

“I conduct séances all the time!”

“And. . . ?”

“And we can use our amulets to summon the spirits who placed the curse! _They_ can tell us what to do!”

Gidica thought about this a moment. “But the curse clearly says to figure it out ourselves.”

“Do we really have any other ideas?”

Another pause.

“Alright.”

“Have you ever summoned spirits with your amulet before?” Pacifica asked.

“No, just gotten rid of them.”

Pacifica sighed. “Okay, you’ll have to do the summoning, then. With my amulet. But first we have to get to the Tent of Telepathy.”

“Why?” Gidica asked.

Pacifica gave him a look. “Because that’s where my séance room is.”

“Does there have to be a special room?”

“Yes!” Pacifica snapped. Then she let out a breath. “Yes. How will we get away from the lake?”

“My parents will hardly notice if you slip away, and if they do notice, they’ll assume you have good reason.”

“Really? They clearly said this outing was to keep up family appearances.”

Gidica snorted. “Trust me, they don’t care that much. What about your parents?”

“Daddy will understand if you give him an excuse later. Mom, well, won’t notice.”

Did Gidica. . . _wince_ at that?

“Okay, great. C’mon,” he said.

“Wait a second. We’ve already caught attention just standing here talking to each other. There’s no _way_ we’re going to be seen leaving the lake together. You stay here, maybe go make excuses for my dad, and I’ll leave. Then you follow me a few minutes later.”

Gidica rolled his eyes. “Fine.”

“Fine. I’ll see you at the tent. But try not to be seen wearing that.”

And with that, Pacifica skated away.


	11. Chapter 11

Gideon looked up at the Tent of Telepathy, wondering where Pacifica’s séance room could possibly be under the small-looking purple cloth.

“Gidica, over here!”

Gideon scowled at the name. Pazeon’s idea had _better_ work. He was absolutely sick of this.

He went around the tent until he saw her standing by a back door. “You ready?” she asked.

“Can you walk me through this?” he replied. He felt less embarrassed about saying that than he expected.

“Yeah. In here.”

Gideon followed Pazeon through the thick folds of the tent into a small, circular room. Pazeon almost sat down nearest the door, but then moved to the other side of the circular table and gestured for Gideon to sit where she had been.

“Cross-legged,” she instructed.

Once they were seated, Gideon asked in a hushed voice, “Now what?” Talking in normal tones seemed inappropriate in here.

“Activate the amulet,” Pazeon instructed, her voice quiet as well. “As if you were trying to look into my mind. When you see purple shapes start to form in your periphery, increase the power and look at them. When you can look directly at the spirits without them disappearing, you’re ready to summon a specific one.”

“How do I know who I’m summoning?”

“Just get to that point.”

Gideon nearly rolled his eyes, but decided against it. It was time to be serious. These was life or someone else’s life stakes here.

He activated Pacifica’s amulet with its unfamiliar purple glow. No purple smoke appeared around Pazeon’s head, like it would’ve for other people, but before long Gideon could see wisps of purple popping up in the corners of his vision, like afterimage spots. His eyes flicked over involuntarily, but when he looked directly at the wisps, they disappeared.

“Don’t look directly at them,” Pazeon reminded him softly. “I’m going to try it with yours.”

The amulet around her neck started to glow, the light blue mixing with the purple to make an ambient light. “Is it working?” Gideon asked after a moment of silence, staring at a spot behind Pazeon’s head while more and more purple shapes appeared.

“Yeah. . . yeah, it is!” Pazeon exclaimed in a whisper. “It’s definitely not as easy as with mine, though.”

A minute or so more of silence, and Gideon’s eyes slid over to the purple shapes again. This time, they didn’t disappear.

“Got it!”

Pazeon didn’t reply for a few seconds. “Me too. Alright, now, focus on the curse as hard as you can. Not what it did to us, but the physical curse, written on the cave wall. Think about what it said, or what it looked like. If you focus hard enough, a shape or two should start getting bigger and taking on a more human form. Those are the spirits we need to talk to. Once they’re big enough to start struggling, pull them into the crystal ball. It’ll trap them in there.”

Gideon thought he was getting the hang of this. It was like exorcisms in reverse. Eyes on the purple shapes, he drew up the image of the curse in his mind’s eye, English words overlaying the ancient markings.

_Let anyone who touches these words be placed under any curse that will lead them to improve . That means whatever curse you got, you deserved it. Figure out why you’re cursed the way you are, admit that you were stupid, and then you’ll switch back._

A white-hot anger swept over Gideon before he knew what was happening. _They_ did this. Whoever wrote that curse, _they_ were going to _ruin his life._

The blue amulet grew brighter. “Gideon, your anger is scaring them away!” Pazeon hissed. “Stay calm until we have the spirits captured!”

It took quite an effort, but Gideon did as she said, curbing his rage and instead focusing on the purple shapes in the room around him and the symbols of the curse in his imagination.

Over the center of the table, a wisp appeared, larger than the others. It was half purple, half light blue, though Gideon wasn’t sure if that was just due to the two amulets giving off light at the same time.

“We’ve got him,” Pazeon whispered. “Push him into the ball.”

It only took a moment for Gideon to understand why she said _push_. The spirit was struggling against Gideon’s mind, trying to escape his hold. Determined, he focused harder on the curse, and mentally pushed the spirit down towards the crystal ball. As Gideon pushed  down on his side, Pacifica pushed down on hers, and after a few but exhausting moments, the spirit filled up the crystal ball in a purple and blue swirling mass.

“Is he trapped?” Gideon asked softly.

“He is! We did it!”

Gideon and Pazeon grinned at each other for a second before realizing what they were doing and looking away, embarrassed. _We’re just doing this to undo the curse,_ Gideon reminded himself, _not because we work well together._

Suddenly, a strong impression of annoyance passed through Gideon’s mind. He frowned. That wasn’t his, was it?

Pazeon laughed. “You’ve never communicated with a spirit before, have you?”

Gideon shook his head.

“They communicate through feelings and ideas of thoughts rather than actual words. The spirit is annoyed at us for trapping him, understandably. Ask if he’s the one who wrote the curse. Not with words, with feelings.”

Interesting form of communication. Gideon decided to try it, and sent a desire to know the identity of the writer to the spirit.

The spirit responded with amusement and pride, a clear _Yep, that’s mine!_ He then added that Gideon was a newbie at this.

 _Hey!_ Gideon didn’t want any lip from a spirit.

Unfortunately, the spirit picked up on this and replied with the mental equivalent of _Too bad._ A vague face appeared in the swirling mass of the spirit and even stuck its tongue out.

Gideon glared at the crystal ball, but Pacifica intervened, sending an explanation of what happened to them. Feelings were accentuated by images popping up around the crystal ball, showing the events, encircled in blue smoke. Gideon’s expression softened as he felt the day all over again through Pacifica’s interpretation. Well, at least she was having as miserable a time as he was.

The face in the crystal ball started laughing soundlessly as Pacifica ended her message with a question on how to fix it. After half a minute or so of laughing, Gideon and Pazeon glaring at it, the spirit shook its head. The curse said to figure it out, he reminded them.

Gideon shot Pazeon an _"I told you so,”_ look.

The spirit started telling his story. As his impressions rolled through Gideon’s mind, the circles of blue smoke showed new images. An ancient living in the area, surrounded by squabbling friends and family. Shown how to write prophecies and curses as part of a birthright. Writing the curse, hoping to stop some of the rivalries around him, and leading people to it pair-by-pair.

And did it work? Pacifica wanted to know.

The spirit nodded emphatically. He grinned as he added how great it was that the curse still worked after thousands of years. So, he asked, what were Gideon and Pacifica going to do about it?

The anger that Gideon had been holding back broke through. How _dare_ the spirit do this! They were going to be stuck like this forever because of _him!_ He had _no right to—_

The spirit raised a smoky eyebrow. They wouldn’t be stuck like this forever, he pointed out, if they could figure out what they needed to fix. The curse ran itself; he didn’t have anything to do with it except bringing it into creation.

Pacifica tried to send calm over the situation, but Gideon would not be calmed. He kept sending his anger over to the spirit, wanting to unleash it, _needing_ to unleash it.

“Gideon!” Pazeon finally hissed. “Your anger is going to let him escape!”

The spirit pitched in unhelpfully, sending that there was nothing more they could get from him anyway. That just made Gideon more angry.

A final wave of rage crashed over the spirit, and took it with him. The purple and blue smoke flew from the crystal ball, the face disappearing, the connection broken. The spirit streaked away into nothingness, leaving a single gust of wind and in its wake.

Gideon watched it go, his anger subsiding, chilled by a numbness that was washing over him. His amulet, or, Pacifica’s, stopped glowing, the purple wisps of spirits disappearing with its light.

Pazeon’s blue amulet faded as well, until the only light came from the dim lightbulb overhead.

Silence.

“I’m sorry,” Pazeon finally said. “I thought that would work.”

“Me too, for a minute there,” Gideon said, his voice emotionless.

“I thought. . . .” She trailed off. When she didn’t finish, Gideon glanced up. With a start, he realized she was crying. Pazeon, crying! Pacifica, with Gideon’s face, _crying._

“I don’t want to be like this forever,” she finally said, her voice steady but strained.

“Me neither.” Why couldn’t he feel anything? He sighed. “I’m sorry, Pacifica. I shouldn’t be getting in the way of your plans. I just thought—”

“No,” she interrupted. “We both know I’m insane, and. . . And you’re less insane.” She gave a little smile through her tears. “I need you to make sure I don’t do anything too terrible.”

Gideon snorted quietly. “I don’t think I have that much influence over you.”

“Maybe not, but. . . But I should’ve included you. I shouldn’t have just expected you to help without something in it for you. I’m getting revenge, and proving that Mabel is evil, but what are you getting?”

Even though she was being open, the matter-of-fact way Pazeon talked about her delusions made Gideon shiver a bit.

“I don’t know,” he said. Then he frowned. “But. . . I think I have an idea.”

“So, we can be partners?” Pazeon asked. “Not just. . . Reluctant allies?”

“Yeah,” Gideon said. He found himself almost able to smile. “Partners.”

They sat in a satisfied silence for a minute.

Gideon stood up. “Here, let’s get out of here.” He walked around the table and put out a hand for Pazeon to grab onto.

She looked at the hand, then up at Gideon’s—well, her—face, then back at the hand. Then, a faint smile on her face, she took it and stood up.

“Now what?” she asked. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t really want to go back to the lake.”

“Me neither,” Gideon replied.

“What is it with you and two-word answers?”

Gideon shrugged. “I don’t know, I just—”

“Gideon.”

Gideon frowned at the interruption, but then her tone registered. “What?”

“Look.”

She nodded down at their fingers, which were still brushing.

They were glowing white.

Gideon’s eyes snapped up to Pazeon’s, wide in surprise.

She grinned back, but it was quickly lost in the white light as it enveloped them.

~~~~~

Pacifica didn’t want to open her eyes, not yet. What if they hadn’t actually switched back? She didn’t want to risk looking and seeing herself, still inhabited by Gideon.

So she cast her mind out to her body and started feeling.

It came slowly, but it came. Her legs, wrapped comfortably in tight cloth, another layer of cloth resting on her thighs. A weight on her head, secured by a headband that sat behind her ears. Make-up, cracked in places, forming a mask over her face.

She felt like _herself_ again.

So she opened her eyes, and found herself staring at Gideon.

Gideon! He was in his own body again! Pacifica looked herself up and down and let out a laugh. It was her! She was _her!_

Gideon was laughing too, jumping to his feet, as the two had fallen when they’d vacated the other’s body. “We did it!”

“I’m me!” Pacifica shrieked, patting herself down to be sure. “I’m really me! Ha! We did it!” She hugged herself tightly, closing her eyes. “I’m me again.”

Gideon wasn’t as outwardly enthusiastic, but his happiness was spelled all over his face. “Oh,” he said, rubbing at his cheeks, “it feels _so_ good to have my own face again. And my amulet.” He fingered it fondly.

“My amulet!” Pacifica echoed, activating hers. Purple tinged her vision, although Gideon’s thoughts didn’t appear. But that didn’t matter, and was to be expected. Pacifica heaved a sigh of relief. “My amulet,” she repeated. _Oh_ she had missed this thing. Gideon’s was a poor replacement for the one she knew so well.

“You rely on that thing a lot, don’t you?” Gideon asked.

Pacifica put her hand over it defensively. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she shot back.

Gideon stared at her for a moment, and then laughed, short and loud. “Well you’re definitely yourself again.”

Pacifica rolled her eyes, but the happiness from being in her own body hadn’t quite dissipated yet. “I’ve had my amulet since I was eight,” she reminded Gideon, “so I guess it’s become a part of me.”

“I’ve had mine that long too, but it just feels like a tool.”

Pacifica shook her head. “Not mine. It’s an extension of me. But yours definitely did feel like a tool. It was so unwieldy!”

“Yours was too eager,” Gideon replied with a huff.

Pacifica knew the banter was just that, banter. “Well, Mr. Northwest, should we return to our families?”

Gideon considered that. “In a bit,” he said slowly.

“First I want to show you something.”


	12. Chapter 12

Mabel sat firmly down on the small dock, barely feeling the cold wood seeping through her jeans. Her ice skates slid listlessly over the ice below, and she stared at the slashes they made.

“Mabel?” Dipper sat next to her on the dock. It wasn’t the main dock, but a smaller one tucked into some trees. Nobody had seen them come over here, Mabel was pretty sure, and even if they had they wouldn’t have seen how upset she was. The last thing she needed was more attention. Dipper’s was fine, but. . . Amanda was here too.

“Thanks for staying out of it,” Mabel said to her twin. “That probably just would’ve made Ford madder.”

Dipper’s fist clenched as it reset on the dock. “He’ll apologize for treating you that way.”

Mabel let out a humorless laugh. “Will he? He’s pretty used to getting his way. And he’s decades older than us.”

“But he’s _wrong!_ And as long as we have the Journal, we can prove him wrong.”

Mabel paused for a moment before looking up at Dipper. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

Dipper’s face was flushed from anger. “I’m saying he doesn’t deserve to know you have his journal if that’s how he’s gonna act about things, if that’s what you thought I was saying. You’re right to keep it from him.”

Mabel summoned a smile. It didn’t make everything better, but hearing him say that did help a little. “Thanks, Dipper. So you think I should keep the Journal?”

“Of course! If Ford won’t show you all the cool stuff around here, you and I will just have to find it ourselves. What do you say?”

It’s true that Mabel and Dipper hadn’t done much exploring with the Journal. Most of the supernatural things that had happened over the winter had just come to them. “Deal,” she said. Then she smiled. “Thanks, Dip. I feel better now.”

He smiled back. “That’s what I’m here for. But don’t worry, I’ll still make sure Ford apologizes.”

Mabel bit her lip. “I dunno. . . .”

“For me, if not for you. I can’t _believe_ he would talk to you that way! Especially after we’ve _seen_ what he can act like.” Dipper glanced at Amanda with that last sentence.

Mabel thought of Melody’s story. How Ford used to be excited and adventurous, but then one day everything changed. “I think,” she said slowly, “that we saw a side of Ford earlier that he’s been keeping hidden for decades.”

“Why would he hide it?” Amanda suddenly blurted. Mabel started; she had nearly forgotten Amanda was there. Amanda blushed when Mabel looked up at her, but continued. “And why would he treat me differently than you guys?”

“Maybe because you’re a selkie?” Dipper suggested. “Or because you aren’t related to him? I don’t know. But like I was telling you earlier, he never talks that way to us.”

“I think,” Mabel cut in, her voice soft, “he recognized that you were scared and needed help, and some instinct or habit kicked in without him thinking. I think he’s helped other magical beings before.”

“When?” Dipper asked, sounding incredulous.

“A long time ago,” Mabel said with a shrug.

“Mabel?”

It was Melody. She slid to a stop, throwing up ice shavings in her wake.

“Oh, h-hi,” Mabel said, not making eye contact.

“What happened? Ford looks grumpier than usual, and then I saw the three of you over here.”

Mabel looked down at the ice under her feet, not sure how to answer. She felt guilty around Melody, somehow. As if her story meant that Mabel shouldn’t have fought with Ford.

“Mabel and Ford fought,” Dipper said for her. “So we came over here to cool down.”

Mabel could feel Melody’s searching eyes on both her and Dipper. “You must be really angry about that.”

Mabel started to nod, but then Dipper started talking. “Yeah, I am.” Wait, Melody had been talking to Dipper? But _she_ was the one who had been talked down to and humiliated.

Then she wondered how she would feel if she saw the same thing happen to Dipper, and understood why Melody was talking to him.

“Um, this is a nice little hidden dock,” Amanda said. “I’m gonna go get my seal skin and bring it around to here.”

“Oh, I’ll help you,” Melody added. “I can bring the car around so you don’t have to carry it so far.”

 _Thank goodness._ Mabel liked Melody, and didn’t dislike Amanda, but she didn’t really want them around right now. It was bad enough Amanda had witnessed the fight.

Melody and Amanda skated a ways away before getting off the lake to take their shoes off.

“They can’t see you anymore, Mabel,” Dipper told her softly.

And with that, the tears Mabel had been holding back broke through.

She cried silently, and it wasn’t a messy or a violent cry. Just tears making tracks down a flushed face and hitches in shallow breaths. Dipper just sat there next to her for a while, letting her let it out.

After a few minutes, she said, “Dipper. . . I’m so weak.”

“No you’re not,” he said immediately.

She shook her head. “I _am_. I can’t even handle Ford getting angry at me without crying. I couldn’t handle Pacifica showing up at our door, and I couldn’t handle those clones, and. . . .”

“Mabel, stop,” Dipper said. “I know it feels like that, but you’re not weak. It’s okay to cry, and it’s okay to get upset easily.”

Mabel wiped at her eyes. “Gideon Northwest thinks I’m weak.” She wasn’t sure why she said it. It just came out.

Dipper hit a hand on the dock. “Gideon Northwest is a jerk who makes bets over people’s feelings. Don’t ever listen to him.”

Mabel looked up at him. “How come you don’t seemed bothered by things like this?” she asked.

“Bothered? Of course I’m bothered! Haven’t you seen me these past ten minutes?”

“Not like that, I mean. . . How come you don’t ever explode o-or lose it like I do?”

Dipper paused. “I think it’s because I don’t hold it in to begin with.”

Mabel thought about this. Dipper _was_ pretty transparent. He said what he thought and showed what he was feeling. Mabel, though. . . Mabel kept it all hidden inside until it just couldn’t stay there anymore and she let it all out. She didn’t know any other way of dealing with things.

“Mabel,” Dipper said, “I can see Melody and Amanda. And Ford looks like he’s nearly done.”

Mabel didn’t want to look Ford’s way, but she did glance over at Melody and Amanda, who were approaching through the trees.

“Okay,” she said, giving her face one more rubdown with her shirt. “Okay, I’m good now. Thanks, Dip.”

“You’re welcome,” Dipper said, smiling. “You gonna be okay around Ford? I think you should tell him that you deserve an apology, but—”

“No,” Mabel interrupted. “No, I’m not going to say anything. If I keep quiet, he’ll be less likely to suspect I’m going against him. I’m gonna keep studying the Journal, and keep learning about the supernatural, but he’s made it clear he doesn’t want to be involved.”

Dipper frowned at this, but nodded reluctantly. “Alright, fine. If that’s what you want.”

“It is.”

“Everything okay over here?” Melody’s voice carried over to the dock.

Mabel pushed herself to her feet, wobbling a moment before finding her balance on her ice skates. “Yeah, everything’s fine. Get the seal skin okay?”

Amanda hefted it up to show that she had it and then let it settle around her shoulders. “Do you think Ford is ready?”

“I think so,” Dipper said, pointing. Ford was standing by the hole in the ice, waving his arms to get their attention. He started beckoning at them to join him. “Think he’s apologetic?” Dipper added.

Mabel gave Dipper a little nudge and shook her head, hoping he’d get the message.

“What?”

_Sigh._

“We’ll worry about that later,” Mabel said. “Right now we have to focus on getting Amanda through that portal.”

“Right,” Dipper said, looking down at the ice. It took Mabel a second to realize why he was suddenly acting so down.

Over the last ten minutes or so, Dipper had been all about helping Mabel emotionally, and she hadn’t even noticed—he was torn up about Amanda leaving, wasn’t he? Of course he was! As far as Mabel could tell, he fell for Amanda a lot faster and harder than any other crush before. And now she was leaving, the same day he met her.

That is, unless Ford was waving them over to tell them he’d made a mistake and the world was about to explode.

~~~~~

Dipper skated behind Amanda and Melody, Mabel behind him. His heart was in his shoes. Part of him was hoping Ford was calling them over to tell them he’d made a mistake and the world was about to explode, or something else that meant Amanda wouldn’t have to leave.

_The kiss._

If she _did_ have to leave, he’d kiss her. He had to. He’d go crazy knowing she’d left without it.

“I got it!” was the first thing Ford said when the entourage made it across the lake.

_Yay._

“Once I press this switch, a controlled electric pulse should reverse the portal’s flow for a window of about three minutes. So, Amanda, once. . . .” He trailed off when he noticed the faces of the audience. Mabel, not looking at him. Dipper, face drawn by dread. Melody, disapproving. Amanda, frowning from fear.

Ford sighed.

“Mabel, I’m sorry that I spoke out of hand earlier,” he said to her. “I’m not going to change my mind, but I was more vehement about it than I should’ve been, and I apologize.”

Mabel’s eyes flicked up to Ford’s, and then back down to the ice, and then back up again. “Thanks,” she said softly. But her eyes could only hold his for a moment, and she dropped her gaze again.

Ford nodded. “Alright. As I was saying, Amanda, once I flip this switch you’ll have to immediately transform so you can get through the portal in time.”

The worry in Amanda’s eyes deepened. “It’s. . . It’s so cold in there.”

Dipper instinctively moved closer to her.

“The portal isn’t far from this hole, as you probably already know,” Ford said. “If you get in and swim as hard as you can, hopefully you’ll be through before the cold sets in. Do you think you can do it?”

Amanda swallowed, but nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I can do it. What about, um. . . ?” She looked down at the clothes she was wearing.

“K-keep them!” Mabel stuttered.

“Leave the winter clothes and the ice skates,” Ford said, “but yes, you can just keep the rest. That doesn’t hinder your transformation, does it?”

Amanda shook her head. “It should be fine.” She shrugged her seal skin off her shoulders, and it fell to the ice.

Dipper almost interjected—she was wearing his fourth favorite shirt, that he had gotten for Christmas!—but then decided against it. That wasn’t important right now.

“Hey, Ford?” he asked instead.

“Hmm?”

“You’re positive that when you flip that switch, the portal will reverse?”

Ford paused, but then nodded. “Ninety-three percent certain, although that may be a bit generous. Why?”

Dipper didn’t answer, but instead turned to Amanda, his skates sliding a bit beneath him. “I, um, have a present for you,” he said.

 _Man_ he was nervous!

“Really?” Amanda asked.

When Dipper imagined his first kiss, he had never imagined it on ice skates. He tried to shuffle closer to her, and ended up losing his balance, nearly falling on top of her. Amanda caught his arm and laughed, and Dipper laughed too, though more out of nervousness than anything else.

Turns out the fall worked to his advantage, because they were now touching. Dipper took her hands in his, swinging them down at their sides a bit.

“What’s the present?” Amanda asked. Something in her tone said she had an idea.

“This,” Dipper replied.

He leaned forward and kissed her.

The kiss lasted an infinite second in comfortable silence as Dipper and Amanda’s lips met. It wasn’t passionate, or intimate, but it was happy, and it was long—or, at least, it felt long.

Dipper heard Melody whoop to his left, and Mabel started to laugh and clap. But Dipper wasn’t looking at them, or at anything. His eyes were closed, and he was focused on the feeling of Amanda’s hands in his and his lips on hers.

Finally, they pulled back. They seemed to just know when, and they did it together. Dipper’s eyes opened, and he found himself looking into Amanda’s smiling face. His heart soared at the sight of that smile, and he vaguely realized he was wearing a huge grin.

“How long did that last?” he asked without thinking about it.

Amanda’s smile wavered, and she dissolved into laughter, bracing herself against Dipper’s shoulder. Dipper was aware of Mabel laughing too, and Melody called, “As long as you think it lasted, Dip!”

Once Amanda got ahold of herself, releasing her last laughs through deep breaths, she straightened and said, “I don’t know the answer to that question, but I don’t need to.”

The two stared into each other’s eyes, smiling.

_“Ahem.”_

Dipper blinked, his grin—and his romantic trance—dropping.

“Ford,” Melody chided, “don’t ruin the moment!”

“Um,” Ford said, looking between Amanda and Dipper, “too late, I guess.”

But Amanda and Dipper were too happy to do anything but laugh again.

Ford gave a slight smile, but it was clear he wanted to get back to business. “Amanda, we—”

“Wait!” she interrupted. “Does anyone have a pen?”

Ford sighed and pulled one out of his coat, tossing it to her.

She caught it and took one of Dipper’s gloves off, writing on the skin on his palm. “My email address,” she explained as she wrote. When she was done, she handed him his glove back and looked up into his eyes. “My present to you.”

Dipper was sure his face was about to split apart, his smile was so big.

Another sigh from Ford. “Alright, now can we focus?”

Amanda threw back the pen as Dipper pulled on his glove. Once his glove was back on, Dipper tried to turn and stand at attention, but his skates slipped again, and he found himself once more supported by Amanda.

Which of course resulted in another lapse of giggles.

“Dipper,” Ford was saying, sounding impatient. “Amanda.”

Dipper wanted to acknowledge him, but he couldn’t do anything but laugh.

“We have to get Amanda home!”

The laughing stopped.

Dipper straightened, looking at Amanda. Their smiles had dropped as they remembered what was about to happen.

“I’ll email you,” he promised.

“And I’ll always remember my first kiss,” she replied.

Dipper’s eyes widened. “That was your first kiss too?”

She smiled back, not as brightly as before, but softly. “Of course it was.”

She let out a little sigh and turned to Ford. “Okay. I think I’m ready.”

Was that a sigh of relief from the old man? Dipper held back an eye roll, trying not to be annoyed at Ford by holding on to the feeling of the kiss.

Amanda sat down on the ice and unlaced her skates, her seal skin next to her. Once she was done, the skates resting on the ice, she let out a breath. “Thank you,” she said to the people around her. “For rescuing me, and for taking care of me, and. . . ,” she glanced at Dipper, “for giving me my first kiss,” she said with a smile. He returned it. “And especially for making sure I can get home safely,” she finished.

“You’re welcome,” Ford and Melody said at the same time.

Mabel skated a little closer. “It doesn’t feel like goodbye,” she said, “because I can bet Dipper will be talking about you for weeks.”

“Longer than that!” Dipper added.

Amanda laughed. “Well, it was nice to meet you, Mabel.”

“You too.”

Amanda took off her gloves and scarf and undid her winter jacket until she was shivering in Dipper’s t-shirt, the bold word _Awesome_ across the front.

_‘Awesome’ is definitely one word to describe her._

“Alright,” Ford said, “I’m flipping the switch. . . Now.”

The _click_ seemed louder than it should’ve been, and the wires connected to Ford’s gizmo started to hum.

With one more look at Ford, Melody, Mabel, and finally Dipper, Amanda crawled into the seal skin and pulled it closed around her.

The transformation was subtle. One moment, it was like Amanda was inside a strange seal suit, moving around inside it, until her movements became the seal’s, and the next moment there was no trace of a human inside. The seal flopped over onto its belly, it’s flippers hitting the ice. It looked up at Dipper with intelligent eyes, and that’s when it really suck in—this seal was Amanda.

“That is _so cool!_ ” Dipper exclaimed. “You’re a seal now!”

The seal nodded.

“You’ve got to go before the portal switches back,” Ford said. “The portal’s this way.” He pointed away from Seal Amanda.

Seal Amanda nodded again and waddled up to the hole in the ice. Dipper tried not to think she was adorable, but she _was_.

Seal Amanda rose up and hit her flippers together twice, which Dipper took to mean, _Bye!_ Then she dove into the lake with a small splash and shot off through the water.

Dipper and the others watched in the quiet, straining to see Seal Amanda move under the ice, accompanied by the humming wires of Ford’s contraption. Dipper could’ve sworn he saw a dark shape streaking away from them that then disappeared.

After what seemed like forever, Ford’s equipment stopped humming, and an uncomfortable silence settled.

“Did she make it?” Mabel asked.

“If she hadn’t, she would’ve resurfaced,” Ford said. “We did it. We sent her home safely.”

“Dipper?”

He looked up at Mabel.

“You okay?”

Dipper pulled his glove off to look at Amanda’s email. _Mermaidgirl528._ He guessed mermaids and selkies weren’t too different. After studying it for a moment—she’d dotted the i’s with hearts—he met Mabel’s eyes.

“Yeah,” he said, smiling. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

~~~~~

Gideon and Pacifica traversed Harbinger Hallow, their way lit by their amulets. They walked in silence until they reached the Cipher Wheel again. The drawing of Bill, surrounded by the symbols of the Wheel, gazed down at him with his single eye. Beneath him was Gideon’s Journal, which he had purposefully left behind after switching bodies with Pacifica.

Now, he picked it up. “You asked me if there was anything I wanted from your plans,” he said. “Well, there’s this.” He took a breath, still hesitant to show Pacifica this. But they had decided they were partners, and if he was going to get what he wanted, she needed to know.

He held up the Journal, showing the gold six-fingered hand on the cover, a bold 2 staring out from the palm. “Six fingers,” he said. “I have reason to believe this book, which holds all sorts of secrets about Gravity Rises, was written by Stanford Pines. Who else would put a six-fingered hand on the cover?”

Pacifica nodded slowly.

“But this is the second Journal,” Gideon continued. “There are pages in this one that reference back to the first one, and I believe, if I can find the first Journal and put the two together, I’ll be able to accomplish things I’ve never been able to accomplish before.”

“Like?” Pacifica asked, eager.

Gideon shrugged. “Not sure. But it’s worth finding out. You want revenge on Mabel, for. . . You want revenge on Mabel, right?”

“For keeping Dipper from me and hiding behind a mask of innocence,” Pacifica reminded him.

He stopped himself from rolling his eyes. _Partners. We’re partners._

“Right. But I need to find the other Journal. If I can get a chance to search Stanford’s property, I may be able to find it, or at least a clue.”

Pacifica’s face lit up. “We’ll steal the deed to his property so Mabel and Stanford will have nowhere to go and Dipper will have no choice but to come to me!”

Gideon was too stunned to reply, and a few beats of silence passed. How on earth did she think of that?

Whatever.

“Um, sure,” he said. “Let’s do that.”

He might as well humor her, right? And he’d never stolen a property before. Should be fun, right?

“Great! Now, what was it you were saying about this Cipher character earlier?”

Gideon sighed. He didn’t want to bring Bill into this. But Pacifica’s face was lit up with her ideas, and he knew he should probably just go along with whatever she had in mind.

Still, when he looked up at the drawing of Bill on the cave wall, he couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable under the stare of that one, wide eye.

 

~~~End of Episode Four~~~


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